Citta di Castello

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Today we awoke in Siena to our 1st day of rain. Bit of a bugger as we hiring car today to drive to above place in the very north of Umbria so we can go on truffle hunt. Made our way to the Hertz place & off we went in our Ford Focus station wagon. What a steep learning curve for max! Pouring rain & leaving the busy city area of Siena outside the walls where cars allowed. The car was parked on the side of the road between another 2 with minimal room for manoevring & this road was the main one to Rome! That as well as having the steering wheel on left, gear stick on right & driving on wrong side of road - he did great! We got a map frm Hertz guy cause I couldn't justify the $60 fee plus $16/day hire for a GPS -i hope I don't regret that decision! We did plan on taking most of the day getting to our destination & stopping at places we liked on our way through this part of Tuscany & Umbria but the rain made this too difficult. However we didn't take the main route & detoured, making our way over part of a mountain range, past a huge lake and saw some very picturesque countryside. The rain eased to light during this section which was lucky. We stopped at a cafe on the very top of the mountain which had beautiful views of fog shrouded lake & we had wild boar salami sandwiches! Tasty but dry, as only consisted of bread & salami not even butter! We made our way to Citta & directions to our hotel where sign posted so found it quite easy. Its a big place, has a restaurant, bar & even a health centre & gym so we think we will b able to entertain ourselves here for the afternoon, evening!

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