Jim & Dawna are celebrating their 25th anniversary next year and UnTours is proud to be helping them to gather family and friends in Siena, Italy for the occasion. They’ll be occasional guest bloggers this year, letting us eavesdrop on the challenges and delights of organizing a “big trip.” This is their second post so far. Check out their first post here.
We have sent out the first invitations.
The letter ended up with a bit of fine print so that people realized they were on their own for sightseeing and eating. We are just providing the place to stay—in exchange for stories of what they have been doing.
A quick check with Marilee to make sure how many beds are available in each apartment, and we are off to the races.
We’ll stay in the smallest of the three apartments, #2; friends & family will take #3 and #6:
#2
#3
#6
We are getting excited about next summer already. Among other things, Siena’s July Palio (the medieval horse race) will take place while we’re there. Dawna and Jim have seen it (not to be missed, but not to be repeated either—lots of people!), but it’ll be wonderful to be in town for the pageantry leading up to the race itself.
Here are crucial parts of the invitation letter:
From our 1989 wedding invitation. Some of you were there…Hello! As you can see above, we will celebrate our 25th (!) anniversary in 2014. After lots of talks about how to do this, we decided the best way to celebrate is with our friends. But this will not be an ordinary visit, this will be in one of our favorite places in the world, Italy.
We have rented three apartments on an estate right at the walls of Siena. We invite you to come stay with us—the apartments are at no cost to you. Our idea was that people would come for anywhere from two to seven days.
So stop by as you travel from Venice to Rome.
Or come to explore southern Tuscany for a week.
The idea is to share this beautiful place with you, and to spend some time with our friends. There are no set events. Use the apartments as a place from which to be Italian for a few days. We’ll be exploring the countryside, possibly bicycling, and ensuring that the quality of wine is up to the usual standards. And we’d love to hear what you’ve been up to as we lounge around the pool or eat some really good food.
