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Under the Tuscan Sun & Rain

By most-special-k - Posted on March 23rd, 2008
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This is one of the postcards I bought. It shows all four places we visited in Tuscany. Starting at the top left-hand corner (then moving clockwise): The Duomo & Brunelleschi's Dome in Florence, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, an aerial view of San Gimignano, and the Duomo in Siena.

 

 

Continuing on from my last post, we arrived in Florence late on Day 4. Florence was the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance and was home to many famous people. Do you recognize some of these names? Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, DaVinci, Raphael.

We stayed in Florence 4 nights. It served as a good home base for day trips to the surrounding countryside. Due to our late arrival, our first night (day 4) consisted of checking into our hotel and then a late supper.

 

Day 5 - The Leaning Tower and "David"

Our first morning in Florence, we were up early to catch the one hour train to Pisa. I had talked to a few people that had been to Pisa before and they all said that there wasn't much to see but the Tower. Still, I am glad we went. It was a Sunday morning and nothing was opened when we arrived. The quiet made it feel like we had the whole city to ourselves. The tower sits in the Piazza Dei Miracoli ("Square of Miracles") along with the Duomo (Cathedral) and the Baptistry. Yes, the tower leans - a lot. You can climb the tower but we didn't. Overall, the "Square of Miracles" was pretty touristy -- lots of kiosks selling your basic touristy knick-knacks. We tried to get a picture of us pushing over the tower but it didn't work out to great, have a look:


 

 


The Lean is pretty obvious in this pic!

 

We spent a half day in Pisa and then returned to Florence. In the afternoon we had reservations to visit the Accademia Museum which is home to Michelangelo's David. David is 17 feet tall and carved from one block of marble. The attention to detail is amazing. The museum also featured several incomplete works by Michelangelo. To me, seeing these incomplete sculptures made David that much more spectacular. In them, you could see every little chisel mark and could get an understanding of how much work it must have been to complete something as perfectly sculpted as the completed David -- especially in a time when you couldn't just plug in an electric sander.

 

Copy of Michelangelo's David in the Piazza della Signoria --

pictures were not allowed inside the Accademia

 

 


Day 6 - Siena and San Gimignano

On day 6 we took a bus tour and ventured out to two medieval villages: Siena and San Gimignano. First, we toured Siena... we walked through the narrow cobblestoned streets to see the Duomo, the Duomo Museum and then finally the town square, Il Campo. Il Campo is the setting for a famous horse race called Palio held yearly in Siena. Wiki says, "The Palio is a traditional medieval horse race that is run around the Piazza del Campo each year. This event is attended by large crowds, and is widely televised. Seventeen Contrade (which are city neighbourhoods originally formed as battalions for the city's defense) vie for the trophy: a painted flag, or Palio bearing an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary." Our tour guide for Siena was fantastic (she belonged to the Caterpillar Contrade) and she made a town I'd never heard of interesting. We were glad to have visited!

 

N & Kathy in Il Campo in Siena

 

San Gimignano is a Tuscan hill town that is famous for its towers/ Medieval architecture. It was absolutely beautiful.

 

This is an aerial picture of the town (scan of a post card I bought).

 

 

We enjoyed some free time to shop and explore. Everywhere you looked the views of the Tuscan landscape where spectacular.

 

Getting ready to hit the shops in San Gimignano!

 


Day 7: Florence
Overall, we had some pretty terrible weather on this trip. This day in Florence was probably the worst. It was dark/gloomy and cloudy for the better part of the day. We had encountered rain on other days but this day it came down the hardest. We walked through the San Lorenzo Market and did a little shopping (N and Kathy bought leather jackets, I bought a leather purse), we toured the Duomo and Bapistry.
The front of the Duomo in Florence.
The sun peeked out a bit at the end of the day!!
 
 
We ventured down to the Ponte Vecchio, a Medieval bridge that spans the Arno River. This was the only bridge in Florence to survive WW2 -- all other bridges were destroyed in 1944 when the Germans retreated. It was originally lined with butcher shops. Now it is lined with expensive art and jewelry shops.
The Ponte Vecchio
 
Shops on the Ponte Vecchio
 
 
We had been booked on a wine tasting tour in the late afternoon and arrived to find out it had been canceled or that it didn't run on that day (damn Expedia!). It didn't matter... it gave us a chance to do a bit more shopping and to explore the delights of Florence a little more thoroughly.
 
Our last 2 nights in Florence we ate at the same restaurant called ZaZa's. The food and wine were good and the atmosphere was nice. I wouldn't say we left Italy big fans of Italian cuisine. There must be something wrong with us as all we could think was that it sure would be nice to be eating Western Pizza... but I'll comment more on the food in another post.
 
The next morning we were on the train headed to Venice!

 

 

 

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