On Monday we woke the kids at 7am (which is about two hours later that they used to wake up in Sydney), got them dressed and fed and headed to school for their first day. After a few tears (I won’t say from whom) we said goodbye and headed to the weekly local market.
This was the first day Mandi and I had had to ourselves so we decided to ditch the errands we should have been running and celebrate with a nice lunch in Siena.
The next day I decided to brave the traffic and the subzero temperatures and run up the hill to Siena - about a 10K loop.
I made it!
We decided to spend the rest of the day at home as a mental health day before settling our immigration situation once and for all.
The next day we decided to face the Italian bureaucracy head-on and apply for our residency permits. We headed into Siena on the foggiest morning we’ve had so far.
With all the horror stories we’d heard about the process running through our minds, we found the right place, took a number and waited to be served.
When we got through we were helped by an amazing woman who laid everything very clearly. Of course, we’d been given the wrong advice by the Italian consulate in Sydney so most of the documents we’d already paid to be translated and certified were useless, but at least we knew what we had to do. Stay tuned…
On Thursday, on a typical Tuscan winter morning we decided to reward ourselves for our success with the Italian government, and do some exploring on our own.
We headed an hour South, to a little hilltop town called Montalcino.
We wandered the town aimlessly and shopped for local wine.
Then found a great little restaurant in another town on the way to pick up the kids from school.
The next couple of days were pretty low-key so on Sunday we decided to be a bit more adventurous. Mandi had read about an area about an hour from Siena where thermal springs had built some interesting limestone formations and were open to the public. We packed our swimsuits and headed off (enjoying more time on stunning Tuscan roads on the way).
We found the trailhead and headed down the path.
There were signs forbidding climbing and bathing, which everyone (including one naked couple) was ignoring, so we decided to join them (by going in the water, not by being naked).
We changed back into our clothes, grabbed some hot drinks to warm up and headed for lunch in Pienza, which is famous for its Pecorino cheese (so of course we bought half a kilo).
It was getting late so we headed home to get everyone ready for another week (after taking a few more sunset photos).
