Wet in Siena

Wednesday, June 1
As Jacque and I are checking out of our cute little apartment, Larry tells me we need to find an alternate route out of this town.  Huh?  It seems a little market has set up outside our hotel and throughout the piazza and the guys are afraid....very afraid...after all...our luggage is already more than full.

the view from our window in the cute little apartment, San Gimignano

But a street market?!  What good fortune!  I have wanted to be in the right town on the right day to find a street market.  Although I've tried to plan this, it has never worked out.  Now that I'm not trying to plan it...voila!  One appears!  We enjoy shopping at the various stalls.
Jacque finds a vendor that is selling just what she needs...a big piece of luggage to hold her purchases. Where there's a will there's a way!
We've decided that rather than taking the same route back to our farmhouse, we'll take an alternate route on highways/autostradas and visit Siena.  We park outside the old city walls (as you must do here) and walk about 15 minutes to find the piazza where the famous Palio (horse race) is held.  We find a restaurant for lunch and are enjoying ourselves.
When suddenly...a downpour!!  A serious downpour!  We are so glad that we are still at our table under an awning, because everyone else is scrambling.  And this torrential rain storm is not letting up!  So we have another lengthy lunch...cuz we're not giving up our dry table.  But we can't eat and drink forever.  (Even WE can't eat and drink forever!) Who cares about sightseeing?  Who cares about shopping?  We just buy ponchos and try to get to our car before getting drenched!

Can you see the raindrops?  It was pouring.  The piazza was quickly evacuated.

We make it to the town where our agriturismo is located without getting lost once!!  A miracle!  We want to eat before heading to our rooms and we need to head to our rooms before it gets dark (a scary drive after dark).  And we can't find anything open because it's only 6:00 p.m. and the restaurants are still closed from their afternoon break. So we drive around aimlessly waiting for 7:00 when the American Diner opens. A hamburger sounds so good right now.
Jacque makes an observation.  It has rained in every town we have visited.  We seem to bring the rain with us.  At least in San Gimignano it was only a light shower in the evening.  I wonder where we'll bring the rain tomorrow.