Caffe: The Basics

Coffee is a huge part of life in Italy. Cafe’s are on every street corner and everyone starts their day off at their preferred cafe. We quickly got into the routine of a morning caffe and an occasional pasta (pastry). The beauty of the caffe atmosphere is that it is quick and [...]

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July 2, 2008 Palio Winner is…….

……Istrice or Porcupine!
The Istrice contrada won the July 2 Palio; the first Palio of 2008. The second and final Palio race will be held on August 16.
We were really hoping to be able to see a Palio race after living in Siena and seeing all of the festivities that occurred months and months after [...]

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Cortona: Wine and Food. And then more wine and food!

On Friday we headed off to Cortona for a long weekend visiting Tania and Keith. We had a really great time and ended up spending an extra day and only coming back on Tuesday! There was lots of food and lots of wine! A great weekend all around…..
Cortona is in eastern Tuscany on the border [...]

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Christmas has arrived in Siena

Christmas time has finally arrived here in Siena. Yesterday I happened to be walking by Palazzo Salimbeni (the home of Monte dei Paschi bank) and noticed that they were putting up the Christmas tree. Today as I walked home with Mr. O, they were putting the finishing touches on the lighting. It is quite nice…

…even [...]

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Siena, It’s Like Living in A Museum

Two Italian girls that I know here (both from southern Italy) always describe Siena as a museum and say that living here is like living in a museum. It is kind of true. There is so much history within the walls and when you stop and read about the city it is quite interesting. On [...]

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Wurstel, Brezen, and Plans for January

Since getting back from Verona on Monday night, we’ve had a busy week. Our number one priority has been trying to plan our time once we leave Siena (at the end of December). We thought about trying to spend one or two more months elsewhere (one in the South and/or one in Verona) but realized [...]

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Italy, From Head to Boot and how two little dogs from Lynchburg, VA, might finally get to meet!

Reed and I have decided to leave Siena at the end of December/beginning of January and move on South to travel! This has been in the works for awhile and we still have a lot of work to do getting everything in order. Siena, we realize, is a hard city to live in. It is [...]

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Cibo, That’s Italian for Food!

So maybe you are wondering why we have not really talked that much about the food we’ve been eating seeing that we are in Tuscany and we created a whole other blog so we could write about what we have been eating. Well, the simple answer is that the food is not that great here. [...]

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Montalcino: An Ancient Abbey and Brunello di Discrimination

On Sunday we headed back to Montalcino, having previously visited back in September. We originally were planning on visiting either San Gimignano (to visit for the first time) or Radda (there is a picture we want to buy) but unfortunately there were no buses to either city on Sunday. Go figure! With those to options [...]

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Firenze: Part 2

Sunday we decided to head back to Firenze for the day since the last time we went our visit was cut short because of the rain. We wanted to get a fairly early start but ended up taking the 12:18 train which arrived at 1:50 in Firenze (unfortunately the train service from Siena on Sundays [...]

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