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SURVIVING SIENA WITH KIDS - SHOPPING AT BENETTON

A couple of weeks ago I shopped Siena for a new pair of Jeans. Never much fun that one, and even worse if you are trying to find those Jeans in company of a 5 and a 7 year old. 

So there I was sweating away in one of Benetton's changing rooms. Sweating because a) the Jeans didn't fit (obviously) and b) knowing that my children are on the loose in a store isn't anything that makes me normally feel very zen. 

Just the idea of the disapproving looks from the understandably annoyed shop attendants. However, this time I could have taken my time in that changing room. For once my kids weren't dismantling the store's interior design. Quite to the contrary! They were calmly standing in a corner contemplating the ceiling and counting an amazing amount of artfully painted figures and characters.

Benetton Siena has frescoed ceilings most new world museums can only dream of. I had never realized before! To my excuse, I may add that in most shops the ceilings aren't really much to look at - they obviously want you to concentrate on other things.

To thank my children for bringing Renaissance art closer to their mom I took them to GROM, their favorite ice cream shop in Siena. No amazing ceilings here but tasty additive free ice-cream (some also gluten free) and a small children's space in the back.

BENETTON SIENA
Via Banchi di Sopra 56/57/58 (the main shopping road on the way to Piazza del Campo)
+39 0577 226116 

 GROM - ICE CREAM PARLOUR
Via Banchi di Sopra 11/13; +39 0577 289303 
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Location: Via Banchi di Sopra, 56, 53100 Siena SI, Italia

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