Travels in Italy 2019

The drive from Siena to Montalcino is scenic and winds through the Tuscan hills. Between Siena and Montalcino After 45-60 minutes of driving, I arrived.  Again the Airbnb owners provided detailed instructions to find the apartment, but these were a bit hard to follow.  Inside Montalcino itself, I missed a turn and found myself confronted with a ZTL (zona traffico limitata)--in other words, do not enter unless you want a fine.  Since there were also traffic police right there, I took a right (which was on the owner's list of streets to take to the apartment).  Next I heard was a blast on a whistle and saw the police waving me back.  It seems I turned right on a one-way street going the wrong way!  Trying to explain that I didn't know how to get to the Airbnb, they looked at the instructions and said I had to go back to the beginning (entrance to Montalcino) by turning left where I'd turned right.  Oh, my! At least it wasn't "Go directly to jail. ...

Now that I'm back in the US and visited my family over the Holidays, I will try to finish the blog posts about my Italian adventures.  Sorry for the hiatus.  Fortunately, I kept a journal (handwritten) while I was there, so I can refer back to my observations.  And of course, there is the archive of photographs to remind me of specifics. I left Florence on November 18, 2019, and headed to Siena.  I had reserved a car with Hertz for the remainder of the trip (to be returned in Milan).  Since this section of the trip wanders through wine country, I wanted to be able to drive around to see the territory and visit the vineyards and wineries. Fortunately, the Hertz location in Florence was only a block from my Airbnb, so it was an easy task to pick it up.  A nice Fiat 500L with just enough space in the back to hold my luggage. Readers may remember that I bemoaned the multitude of staircases in the Uffizi and the Pitti.  During those ascents, I made libe...