We are now near Siena

Tuesday – Nov. 30

Our hostess gave us some olive oil from their trees, wine from their vineyard and honey from their bees.  We were thankful but…wonder what we will do with it as our luggage will be full when we leave Italy in a week.  I will eat as much honey as I can and Roger won’t have trouble finishing the wine in a week….the olive oil?  It will kill me to leave it here.  Guess I will give it to our next hostess :)

We headed south with vague directions to our next stop but I am proud to say we made it here with out any misturns (watch out Amazing Race)!!  We had no road numbers for the about 60 km of the way and just kept heading towards certain towns on the map and ended up hitting our destimation without going out of the way.  

“Here” is about 30 miles south of Sienna, kind of in the middle of…nowhere…or in the middle of farmland.  We are staying in a “castle” that was built in the 12^th century to provide a place for pilgrims on the trek from North Italy to Rome.  Of course in the 15^th century it was refurbished but still used for that purpose.  We are not sure how it came to be owned by the current owner (as they don’t speak any English) and when it was redone again but the rooms are beautiful, bed comfy and bathrooms updated.  It truly looks like a small castle and is on a working farm.  Roger did well picking this one…actually all of the places we have stayed have been fun, very different with lots of character.  That was his goal I think. 

As we drove today the scenery changed after passing Lucca.  The mountains disappeared and the country is hilly with rolling hills.  I call them the dimpled hills because they have little ridges that look like dimples in the hillls.  We passed many vineyards and olive tree orchards which changed to farmlands with fields as far as you can see with a house here and there.  We went through an amazing number of small towns, many tempting us to return to later and explore…especially between here and Sienna. 

So we are settled in and I am typing in the bed under the covers and I looked down at the floor at a movement that caught my eye and I saw a MOUSE!!  Eek!!  It ran back under the bed…ugh…where we have our suitcases….hope it did not climb into one especially since Roger now zipped them closed !!  He looked all over for it and then told me castles are supposed to have mice…didn’t Cinderella live in a castle and have lots of mice friends…guess I could not argue with that one!