Today was our first (of two) full day in Siena. It began (huge surprise) with breakfast at the B&B. Then we were off to do a Rick Steves‘ walking tour. I’m sure those go quickly for some, but when you have a photographer on the tour it can take a good amount of time! I mostly did iPhone photography, but did force myself to pull out the Fuji camera at times. (I’m actually not in much of a photography mood when I’m on vacation.) As always, I will share iPhone images here that are reduced so they load more quickly. We started at the Piazza del Campo, wandered per Rick’s (Yes, he and I are on first name basis now. Heh.) instructions to various spots, saw the building that houses the Chigiana Academy of Music but things looked closed at the moment, saw a lot of other interesting buildings, and of course went to the Duomo. More walking. More fun things to see. As always, here is a whole lot of hodge-podge of photos:

Lunch came after we finished with Rick’s tour. We ate at a place very close to where we are staying, in an outside area. I am being better — just had a salad with tuna an chick peas. NO dessert (so far), but a cup of coffee after.

Then we went walking some more, and saw the Basilica of San Domenico. I’ve yet to figure these places out. The sign in front said NO photography or video, so we abided by that. But inside there were people taking photos and videos, and a priest (I’m assuming that’s what he was, seeing the collar) didn’t react to anyone doing photography and at one point a nun took photos! I also saw a man showing his daughters (or maybe granddaughters?) how to light candles and had them fold their hands to pray, and he was wearing a hat. So what gives? Hats okay? Photos fine? Dunno!

More photos of what we saw outside the church, since there was a somewhat nice viewpoint of the Duomo (but there’s a big tree in the way that we had to work around).

Before we went back to our room we went to a shop right next door. Dan is interested in buying an espresso cup and they had some lovely ones. Some are quite costly. I’m not sure I”ll get anything … I worry that whatever I get will break before we get home. But we’ll see.

During our room time I did some hand washing of clothes, and then we did some research about where to eat dinner. We had three possibilities and eventually went out to look at each. The second looked promising, but of course we had to check out the third. Turns out it wasn’t open (I’m guessing an August vacation), but we did see some nice views and the best bougainvillea I’ve ever seen!

We then headed back to restaurant #2. It is a place right underneath the tower in the center of Siena. I have to say sitting under some bricks that I knew were part of the tower could make a person wonder what might happen if there were an earthquake! The food was great, and we were glad to have gone there.

Now we are back in our room. Tomorrow it’s Duomo time.

Buona notte!