Nearby explorations

I am a bit ashamed to admit it, but in the 2 weeks we've been at the house, not counting the trip up to Prague. I have only left the house twice! Jeff goes out and does the shopping, sometimes takes the girls. There is a lot to see and do around our house, but I have been pretty content on the sunny days to stay here and enjoy the outdoors and on the chilly days happy to stay in cooking and hanging with the kids. And...I never seem to quite get ahead on laundry and cleaning, but that's another subject entirely.

We have many options for day trips from where we are including (Florence, Siena, Rome, Perugia, as well as tons of interesting nearby towns. There is a lot on our future weekend itineraries, but so far, we've only visited two nearby stone villages. We perused farmers markets and peeked in countless restaurants we'd like to return to and just enjoyed exploring.

Farmers Market by the lake

Entering the walled city for Farmer's Market day

He kept putting more and more flowers in the bag saying all kinds of price information in Italian, which I was only understanding a bit of.  The girls were quite entertained. 

Markets often have tons of bargain clothing and misc goods. 

"Mom, can we get some  dried pineapple?"

Our little man, I'm amazed at how sure footed he is and strong for only 16 months. 

Playground in town; fun but not as much fun as... 

Cheese! he loves smiling for the camera

Savannah loved the elephant

"Wait for me!"

Running through the streets and narrow passageways in this old walled town!

This turned out to be great fun for the kids. There were virtually no cars or people, though not a lot was open, we had it to ourselves to explore. They ran and led the way. I guess its not often a place is so quiet yet safe for them to run free their own.

"This way!" 

.

"Ooh, this way looks cool."

"This is the way back!"

"I am the map... we should go this way now."

They were really excited and it was a reminder that if we let them have just enough freedom, they will enjoy all types of places (even more than the playground:).