Beautiful Siena - A Dream Wedding

I travelled to Siena and Tornano for a friends wedding over the August Bank Holiday. We flew from Stansted into Perugia and picked up our car hire for the 60km drive to the castle. Unfortunately our castle did not have a postcode or street name so we ended up driving around and around the Tuscan hillside for 3 hours before finding our destination. This is in no way a negative as the scenery is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful, all of the locals we stopped for directions were so helpful, we were just a little useless! The morning of the wedding we had to travel to Siena for the wedding at the town hall. I was not expecting anything other than a quick "I do" in a little town hall and back to the reception. How wrong was I! Siena itself is a walled city and no cars are allowed in the main square, the square is famous for the "running of the horses" and we were lucky enough to be there on the day they held the celebration for the festival coming to an end. We were treated to 100's of band players in the square and this was so special for the wedding couple. The town hall is steeped in history with beautiful paintings all over the walls and ceilings, the ceremony itself conducted in Italian and translated to English, it was all over very quickly for everyone. After the wedding we had pizzas and peroni in the square while the couple had their photos taken walking through the square and various alleyways. The tourists loved the commotion and I'm sure their wedding pictures will be all over the world. Later on in the afternoon we travelled back to Tornano for the reception at the castle. You could not ask for a more beautiful setting for champagne and canapes overlooking the hillside in the late evening sunshine. The castle produces its own wine which was delicious and we even brought some home with us. The wedding breakfast was served in the castle gardens and stayed true to fine Italian cuisine with an amazing 4 course meal. I absolutely cannot wait to go back and experience more of Tuscany and I will certainly be going back to Siena to learn more about its history and wander through the streets. From Siena you can drive out to Florence and Pisa and even to Bologna for a day trip. For anyone looking for a beautiful location to hold a special occasion I cannot recommend Tuscany more. I'm even thinking I may have made a mistake for my own destination!