{"id":57708,"date":"2026-07-08T17:33:37","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T22:33:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/?page_id=57708"},"modified":"2026-07-08T17:33:37","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T22:33:37","slug":"siena-2026-day-2-part-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/?page_id=57708","title":{"rendered":"Siena 2026 Day 2 Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Siena 2026 Day 2 Part 1.<\/p>\n

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\nI wonder how you get to that other view point between us and the duomo? Either way, noticed that they construct a lot of their buildings like they did in Morocco, with a lot of holes in the wall and what I assume holes left over from scaffolding.<\/p>\n

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\nI love vantage points, RL says I\u2019m the only one who appreciates them. She said she likes them when you can see greenery from viewpoint. I see greenery beyond the city! She actually liked this one quite a bit.<\/p>\n

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\nLook babe, more greenery! Tuscany does look like what I think it should look like.<\/p>\n

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\nTime to head down, and two of the kids and I took the elevator this time, RL and one of the kids took the stairs. It\u2019s got two doors, except instead of being opposite one another, they are on two adjacent sides 90 degrees apart. Don\u2019t think I\u2019ve seen this type before. And not only that, one door slides open, and one folds open.<\/p>\n

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\nI want one of these doors in my house.<\/p>\n

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\nNow looking for lunch.<\/p>\n

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\nI think this is the spot for lunch I found on my phone\u2026maybe.<\/p>\n

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\nWe sat down, it\u2019s hot, and this doesn\u2019t feel right…I don\u2019t think this is the spot I had picked out. It feels too touristy on the main road, I don\u2019t think this is the place.<\/p>\n

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\nWalked around the corner, looked down the hill, there\u2019s the restaurant that I thought we were going to. No one had greeted us at the other restaurant yet, so we just all got up and moved.<\/p>\n

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\nThe entrance to the restaurant we are eating at. It\u2019s a little hidden.<\/p>\n

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\nYes, this is much more like it.<\/p>\n

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\nIt\u2019s like we are eating inside a cellar, and the best part, they\u2019ve got the AC blowing COLD.<\/p>\n

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\nBeef tartare for RL.<\/p>\n

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\nOh look, anchovies! That’ll be mine.<\/p>\n

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\nThe kids have discovered that they really like honey with their cheese. I do like the honey here in Italy. It taste much more mild than the honey back in Texas I think.<\/p>\n

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\nPork cheek. I\u2019m glad we made the decision to leave that other restaurant and come here. This place is delicious and the atmosphere is 10x better.<\/p>\n

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\nYum, that\u2019s a good lunch. Time to head back home, for me at least. RL wanted to visit some of the shops up here and the kids wanted to go with her. Fine by me.<\/p>\n

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\nRun down the hill!<\/p>\n

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I took the nap, the kids got on their iPads.<\/p>\n

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\nRL took a stroll in Siena by herself and it rained again this afternoon.<\/p>\n

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\nRL visits the main square, Piazza del Campo, where they are setting up for the Palio next week. They\u2019ve had it fenced off while they are laying down and compact the dirt for the track.<\/p>\n

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\nAfter RL did get recon mission, it\u2019s time for dinner. I want to visit the main piazza, it\u2019s a shame that it\u2019s fenced off and we can only look and not go walking around in it though. The plan is to go to a grocery store and buy some food to eat back at home.<\/p>\n

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\nThe kids have so much energy, they are just bouncing off the walls. We told them that they\u2019ll need to climb the stairs while the adults take the escalators so they can work off some of their excess energy.<\/p>\n

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\nNo Pizza at this restaurant, apparently. But seriously, if you see pizza, the restaurant has a much higher chance of being a tourist trap since I don\u2019t think pizza is really a traditionally regional food here.<\/p>\n

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\nFound an entrance to the main piazza where we can take a peek at what it looks like.<\/p>\n

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\nWait a minute, can we go inside now? It seems like since RL visited an hour or two ago, they\u2019ve since completed putting down the track and we are allowed to go into the main square. Awesome.<\/p>\n

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\nThis is quite nice, we are some of the first people here so it\u2019s nice and empty. Love the relatively thin tourist crowds here in Siena.<\/p>\n

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\nThe kids are always messing around and it\u2019s hard to get a good photo.<\/p>\n

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\nI feel bad for all the restaurants that line the piazza, they can\u2019t open up and have customers while this is happening.<\/p>\n

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\nOr can they? As if on queue, all at the same time, all the restaurants started bringing out tables and chairs out onto the track where the horses will race and began to set up seats. I guess they are open for business after all.<\/p>\n

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\nThe kids really enjoyed running around the piazza. They said they haven\u2019t had much room to run around wild in a while, and they started playing tag.<\/p>\n

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\nThe clock is wrong, and it\u2019s also dinner time.<\/p>\n

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\nThe typical free flowing water fountains that you see at places in Italy.<\/p>\n

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\nAlright kids, let\u2019s go get some food before it\u2019s too late. They asked to come back here again tomorrow so they can run around again, ok, we can do that.<\/p>\n

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\nFound the grocery store.<\/p>\n

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\nThis will do just fine for us.<\/p>\n

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\nPeople just come in and buy giant slices of ham.<\/p>\n

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\nI don\u2019t know why I found this fascinating, it\u2019s a full grown tree. There\u2019s not too much of these in the middle of Siena.<\/p>\n

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\nWe promised the kids gelato. I know it\u2019s before dinner, but since we don\u2019t have a gelato place close by our Airbnb, we\u2019ll eat gelatos first, then dinner second. No one complained.<\/p>\n

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\nItalians use a lot of nuts, we\u2019ve gotta be extra careful for PL with her nut allergies.<\/p>\n

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\nLook at how narrow that garage is! A Smart car can barely fit. And much to my surprise, they have cars driving up here in these narrow roads up here. I do think it\u2019s a traffic restricted area though, so there isn\u2019t too many cars so that\u2019s good.<\/p>\n

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\nLet\u2019s head down and eat some dinner at home.<\/p>\n

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\nBrought these laundry pods from UK to Paris and now here. Let\u2019s keep using them up.<\/p>\n

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\nDinner, looks pretty good and healthy.<\/p>\n

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\nAlong with our rustic Italian loaf of bread.<\/p>\n

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\nWholesome family dinner time with Naruto on the laptop. The TV doesn\u2019t have airplay, so we\u2019ll have to make do with the small screen.<\/p>\n

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\nThere\u2019s a washing machine, but no dryer. Going old school and hang dry here.<\/p>\n

To be continued at Siena 2026 Day 3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Siena 2026 Day 2 Part 1. I wonder how you get to that other view point between us and the duomo? Either way, noticed that they construct a lot of their buildings like they did in Morocco, with … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":57621,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-57708","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/57708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57708"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/57708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58730,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/57708\/revisions\/58730"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/57621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}