Wanderlust: Tuscany and Siena Italy

Best of Italy // Tuscany and Siena Travel Tips // Huntsville Photographers Explore the World

Oh, Tuscany. Your undeniable beauty is an Italian countryside dream.

A quick backstory:

Earlier this year, we took an amazing trip to Italy! A few years ago, we decided to take 2 weeks off every September to explore a new piece of the world. Before Baby Palmer comes to join the fun this winter, we hopped across the ocean to spend some time in Italy for this September’s trip!

Some of our favorite highlights from our travels through Italy, Austria, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland hit the blog few weeks ago. We’ve already shared more about our time in Milan, and Cinque Terre and Pisa, and Florence – and you’ll definitely want to check them out if you’re craving a little Italian joy.

Today we’re sharing some more of our memories from Tuscany and the cute little town of Siena!

We actually didn’t originally plan on this excursion into Tuscany. Our plan was to head from Florence to Verona, driving through the countryside on the way. We had our photo session with Giovanna Aprili scheduled for that evening, but…we decided that we had juuuust enough time to sneak in a trip down to Siena through a pretty Tuscan drive.

Best. Decision. Ever.

It was even totally worth getting to our AirBnB about 30 minutes before we had to meet our photographer. (Probably my record for the fastest makeup application ever…)

Tuscany and Siena

Tuscany was everything we had dreamed it would be when we made that last minute decision. The countryside was just so picturesque with its vibrant fall vineyards, houses dotting the rolling hills, and patches of tomato garden.

Siena immediately won our hearts. This fair city blends quiet back alleys with gorgeous architecture and little local shops. We loved the “small town” vibe it had. There were still plenty of tourists, but it felt so much less touristy than the other Italian cities we visited.

We just had a few hours to take this drive through Tuscany and explore a little bit of Siena, but I still wanted to share these pictures with you! It was one of our favorite mornings of our trip. Everything was peaceful, breath-taking, and all that our Italian wishes could ask for.

Enjoy a little peek into our drive through Tuscany and Siena!

 

Beautiful!!!

We parked our car just on the edge of Siena and walked into the city. It felt so old world here!

The first thing we did was walk through some quiet back streets to find some pizza. We stopped at a tiny shop run by an Italian grandma. Notice my attempt to be healthy by getting one with lots of vegetables. Lol!!

We could wander these streets forever! We didn’t have much time in Siena, so we picked out two major sights and just enjoyed meandering our way over to them.

The cathedral was one place we chose. Seeing the differences (yet many similarities) among each city’s cathedral was really interesting to us. We’ve seen a lot of cathedrals in our travels, and Italy definitely has some neat ones!

This guy was sketching a scene in the alley way. Doesn’t that just feel perfectly Italian?

 

We found the tourist street. :)

Before we headed out for an afternoon of driving to Verona, we squeezed in one J&A coffee adventure! Joel decided he wanted a macchiato. Not shown: the nutella croissant that I ate before remembering to style it with our coffee…

Last look at Siena! We took the highway up to Verona to get there in time for our photo shoot with Giovanna Aprili. Our time in Tuscany was well worth the hustle back!

Next up: Verona! Verona was one of our top favorite cities of the entire trip. We can’t wait to share it soon!

*hugs*

Amber

{Want to explore another city? Tag along on our adventure to Maui, Hawaii or browse the stunning scenery from our Alaskan Cruise! Want to choose your own? We have a whole LIST of adventures filed under Wanderlust on our blog.}