http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Ellen-Griffith/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Ellen Griffith en-us Sat, 02 Jan 2010 05:19:10 +0000 Sat, 02 Jan 2010 05:19:10 +0000 Yesterday we had a bit of rainbut carried on and went to the beautiful town of Siena to see the famous church the 'Duomo' it was spectacular and surpringly uncrowded due to the time of year and the rain. We had lunch in the square I had a wonderful tuscan bread soup and some Vino Today the ladies went to the designer outlets and I had big plans to purchase gifts there but eve http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Siena/blog-339704.html Ciao friends and family Today we travelled about 12 hour by car to the beautiful walled hill town of San Gimignano The weather was beautiful not too hot and not too cold......we ate at a lovely outdoor cafeand walked all arund the town. We ate gelato orange chocolatecoffee and carmel at a place that won the best gelato in Italy in 2006 We also went to the Museum of Medivel Torture http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/San-Gimignano/blog-339227.html Bari to Polignao a Mare Backroads of Pulgia In typical fashion Ellen tried Gin and Tonic Wine and then her first glass of Grappa I then spent a good portion of the early morning hours becoming intimately famaliar with the bagno particularly the toilet as I got rid of my poor choices for about 6 hours from both ends of my body For those that have travelled with me I seem to have this ex http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Puglie/Bari/blog-338832.html Buona sera from Umbria ItalyI have not had much luck accessing the internet in the last week. In Rome I was too sleep deprived or too busy seeing the Vatican. In Bari where we stayed the night before we began our bike trip I did not try and at the 3 ldquohotelsrdquo we stayed at during our bike trip only one ldquotrulyrdquo had an Internet connectionmdashand that one had the one c http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Umbria/Todi/blog-338505.html CiaoWe made it to Pulgia Italyand are about to start our day 3 of bike riding So far no saddle soresInternet access has been challenging...as the definition of internet access is one computer per hotelPlane flight from SFO to Dulles went great I sat next to a well behavedand thin young lawyer in coach and jim stretched out his legs in business class. At Dulles we got lucky and upgraded m http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Puglie/Bari/blog-336839.html Today we are making final arrangements to leave EARLY Thursday morning October 16th we will be leaving from San Francisco Airport and headed for Rome via Newark New Jersay. I am hoping to make some entries in this blog as we travel along and share them with friends and family elle elleniarchitects.com http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/blog-334282.html