Little town overload

We started out with breakfast in the hotel. Breakfast was good but there could have been some more fresh fruit. That seems to be common in italy -- there isn't much fruits or vegetables available on the menus. After breakfast we got the car and headed to Siena. Our first stop was Piazzale Michelangelo with its stunning view of Florence. Then, as we were driving, we decided that it would be best to go to a winery before going to Siena. We read in the Rick Steves book about a town, San Gimignano, which is on the way to Siena and has a couple wineries. We made it to San Gimignano, which is this amazing old castle on a hill. Rick Steves didn't give the easiest directions for parking. We missed the lot which happened to be the first one by the main gate (p1). We parked and entered the castle. The castle has been turned into a shopping arcade full of little shops. A tourist trap for sure but I guess it's nice that they are making use of the old castle. We had a pizza (one with verdura, zucchini and eggplant, and the other with olives and mushrooms) lunch here. Jadine found a purse she liked. On the way back down from San Gimignano we stopped at a local family run winery, Sovestro. We tasted a few wines and picked up a bottle of the red. We headed back the way we came except we made a wrong turn and got on a local road to Siena instead of the freeway. The road was slow and winding and went through a lot of little towns, but by this time we were tired of seeing little towns and wanted to make it to Siena before the sights closed. We finally made it to Siena at 5:00. We made it to the duomo and saw some amazing stained glass and tiled floors. Afterwards we went to the campo and had a salad dinner. After dinner, we headed back to the car but stopped at a prodotti tipici shop which Rick Steves recommended to do and bought an Italian chewy sweet bread that is similar to fruitcake (mm fruitcake :o ugh). Driving back to Florence we missed the highway exit again because the sign is labelled differently. The Italian road signs only say the direction to a city and major highway, but do not say the name of the street. We caught on to the signage and hopped on the freeway. We stopped at the Piazzale Michelangelo again to get a view of Florence at night. We made it back to the hotel after one failed attempt at driving through the city. Advice for florence: do not rent a car. It's a big pain. However the trips out to the tuscan countryside were fantastic.