Piazza Santa Croce. Galileo is buried there.

Grilled local sausage with white beans. Mmmmmmmmm.

Pierluigi features some pretty amazing seafood and has a spectacular wine list. Highlights included risotto scampi, fried baby squid, fresh baby artichokes served deep fried, and homemade limoncello and cookies for dessert. Sebastian aka “Sebastiano” was an angel and was treated as such my the staff.

Da Fortunato was also excellent, though perhaps not quite as good. The son of the owner went to school in California and speaks perfect English. The Pantheon is right next door and there’s a great gelato place right across the street for dessert. Sebastian stayed put in his chair thanks to a massive pile of french fries. I had a lovely fresh spinach and ricotta ravioli. The carbonara was excellent as well.

I was surprise at how much I enjoyed the Bernini sculptures at Villa Borghese. He was a master and his sculpture is amazing. How did he fix his inevitable mistakes in a one ton slab of marble?

If you want to buy a SIM card in Italy, Vodaphone prepaid stinks. I now have a Wind SIM and am far happier.

The website Prepaid gsm website  is badly out of date. One only needs a US drivers license or passport, not a codice fiscale.

In Siena, so far we’ve eaten at Ristorante Millevinni inside the Enoteca Italiana – Grade A food, C+ service. A + location and setting. Overall would recommend it.

Finally, I’m in love with the local boar prosciutto. I’m bringing back a duffle bag full.

We are off to the Vatican today. If our first trip to Rome was typified by anything in particular it was a trip to the eye doctor because the vision in my right eye went goofy and I was worried about a detached retina.

But with that settled and everything OK, we have done some sightseeing at the Villa Borghese and the Trevi fountain and the Spanish steps. Today we’ll see the Vatican and the Forum, etc.

Our hotel has been wonderful. The Italians love children and Sebastian has been warmly welcomed everywhere we’ve been. Last night we had wonderful dinner at Pierluigi- fried baby calamari and risotto scampi were the highlights for me. Tried some fantastic Italian produced chardonnay and cab sac by a winery called Lowenberg.