Siena for my 50th birthday

 [late April 1998]

I had the great good fortune to an entire week inside the walls of Siena in celebration of my 50th birthday. OK, Susie and I did take buses to Montalcino and San Gimignano for short day trips. Otherwise we roamed the side-streets and back alleys of this incredible medieval city,  hanging out on the Piazza del Campo watching the ebb and flow of humanity, people from around the world savoring the experience of being in Siena.

It was our second trip to Italy and it's quite possible we enjoyed ourselves even more than the first one. A grand time indeed!

We rented an apartment on via Campagna just a stone's throw from the Piazza del Campo and out tiny street had its own grocer and bakery. In the morning I would walk across via di Citta to a bar for coffee and then to the bakery for pastries. Aside from sleeping in way to late most days we both found the experience exhilarating. 

It was wonderful and certainly enlightening to simply spend most of our time strolling inside the walls of this spectacular little, so much to experience just by walking, taking one's time and savoring the place, its people, the rhythms of life here.

our apartment entrance was just before the grocer on the left and bakery at the far end

Susie at the window

via Campagna and via di Citta

view from our window of via di Citta

view of the Torre di Mangia from the Duomo

view from the Duomo

via di Citta

Susie on the walls of the fortezza

Bahamas 1998

Leaving a snowstorm that dumped some three feet of snow up in Chittenden, VT, we made our way down our hill to the Rutland Airport to catch our flight to Boston and then connect to Miami and eventually to Nassau, Bahamas.

Pulling into the airport parking lot we quickly discovered the airport was locked and there were no lights on. A few minutes later the air crew and a few other passengers arrived. Due to weather conditions no flights were leaving Rutland so we were all bussed to Keane, NH, where we found more tolerable weather and flew on to Boston.

Once in Nassau we were shuttled to the Atlantis Resort where we would spend the next several days enjoying the weather features, the beaches and people watching.