March 20, 2010
Greetings from Siena. We’ve been in Italy for a week and this is the first time I’ve been able to get on the internet. It’s not that Tuscany is uncivilized but, well, there isn’t wi-fi everywhere. Thought you’d probably rather look at pictures so here are a few. I’m still trying to get used to this blog — bear with me. The first photo is in Milan. We were standing in the main square in front of the Duomo, which is the forth largest cathedral in the world. We were able to hike up to the roof for an incredible view.
In Milan, we saw Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper, the opera house La Scala, some interesting art, and a lot of the old city. We were all surprised at how beautiful Milan is — we expected a charmless industrial place. We were happily surprised.
On our third day we drove down to Tuscany and met up with Karl, Sarah, Amy and Kent at the villa.
We spent the next five nights there, making day trips to Florence, Lucca, Volterra and Pontedero. The house was lovely. Originally a granary and apparently part of the Medici estate, an American couple recently rebuilt it. We were very comfortable except that the heat wasn’t working so it never got much above 50 degrees inside! Yes — Tuscany can be cold in the spring. We saw a lot of snow on the drive down from Milan. Fortunately it wasn’t that cold in our area — but cold enough. All the locals were wearing down parkas during the day. We were sorry we left ours at home.
This is the walkway along the wall that surrounds the old city of Lucca. We had lovely weather that day. 
Karl and Sarah having lunch in the Roman square in Lucca.
Jan and Dick — always in good spirits!
We climbed up to the top of a tower for a wonderful view of Lucca.
This morning we drove to Siena — another beautiful Tuscan city. Sadly our weather wasn’t as nice for photos so I won’t post any tonight. We did spend some time in the Siena Duomo — this photo is from it’s library.
In the morning, we’ll drive to Venice and spend the next five nights there. I should have internet at our hotel so I’ll post more soon. We miss y’all — especially Theo and Abby.
Traveling With Anne & Barn 
January 26th, 2011 at 8:50 pm
Just cruising your photo blog for the first time and notice your time spent in Lucca. Small world. One of my high school friends, Donna, married an Italian, moved back to Italy about 20 years ago and settled in Lucca a few years back. She loves it. Donna freelances as a translator and just started a cooking blog (she’s a great cook). I should send you a link to it. Wish you both well and welcome home.