Under the Tuscan Sun

It has been brought to my attention by a fervent follower of the blog that the Amanda to Jon posting ratio has recently become one sided. Thanks to this helpful comment, Amanda has the day off today.

We arrived in Florence yesterday by train from Venice. We checked in to our hostel and then started exploring Florence. The one thing we were not counting on, however, was scorching 90 degree heat and relentless sun. Is forced us to spend part of our afternoon in a shady local bar with a pitcher of beer. We did manage to see some things however...

This is the massive Duomo cathedral which was constructed in the thirteenth century... This thing is huge and this picture does not relay the sheer size of it.... But here is another picture.

Today we took a bus trip from Florence to the town of Siena to see a smaller, more rural town. It also had a Duomo cathedral which we were able to see from a distance. The town also had some cafe's, a park with a fountain and some other churches. It also had some scenic vineyard views that we could not capture from the bus.

That is Amanda's new hat she bought to wear to UVA football games next year (google UVA football student dress). Anyway the last few days have been a little more relaxing with a little bit of downtime which has been nice. We will update tomorrow from the Chianti region where we will have a vineyard tour and hopefully some scenic photos. Thanks for reading.

By the way, we finally had some great Italian food tonight. I had the spicy tomato garlic pasta, and Amanda had white wine chicken. It was kind of a long time coming, but worth the wait.

J