If you're not able to bicycle through Tuscany and Umbria, the next best thing is to know someone who's willing to drive. For reasons I'll never figure out, I did! What a joy - all I had to do was sit back and relax (and pretend to "navigate") while Tom did all the driving! Not only that, but I also got to enjoy all the stares as we whizzed (?) past in our eye-catching little orange Citroen "convertible".

Our original plan for the first day's drive was perhaps just a tad ambitious: pick up a rental car at 10, somehow find our way out of Florence, head south to San Gimignano, Siena, Montalcino and Montepulciano ("doing" each in turn and, at least in the case of the latter two, sampling the local wines for which they are so justly famous) before heading to Sinalunga for the night. Sure!

Well, we did make it to San Gimignano and Siena, both of which we enjoyed immensely even though there simply wasn't time for any more than fairly cursory visits. From there it was "straight" to Sinalunga and the Locanda dell'Amorosa, arriving around 8 - 9 pm.

As you can probably tell from the number of photos I took, I was rather impressed with the Amorosa. It didn't hurt that we had a "two bedroom apartment": my room being significantly larger than any room the two of us stayed in anywhere else on the trip! They also had (for sale) neat little 3 or 6 packs of wonderful local wines. A rather civilized touch, I thought!

Oh yes, book a stay here if you possibly can. Just don't do it when I want to!