Touring Tuscany --

June 13, 2016

Sure, the receipt said a twelve hour tour . . . But could that really be?

Well, yes. On Monday morning we met our tour at 8:30 a.m. and returned to Florence at 8:30 p.m.. And it was totally worth it.  We booked the day trip through the online consolidator, ViaTour (definitely worth checking out wherever in the world you are choosing to travel), which assigned us to a company named WalkAbout Florence (also whole heartedly recommend) for the excursion.

The trip took us to Sienna, San Gimignano & Pisa (with a lunch break at a very hip all organic agriturismo farm).  Not usually fans of this sort of mob bus, we decided to take a risk to expand our Tuscan immersion -- in this case, the risk paid off.

So quickly (because the long day had a domino delay effect on blogging) here are our highlights:

Sienna:

Loved the storybook feel of the town overall, the story of the Palio (annual horse race), and the overwhelming beauty of the facade, marble floors and stained glass window of the Duomo.

San Gimignano:

Enjoyed the garden overlooking the city and some of its remaining 14 towers (of what once were more than 70 -- lending to the nickname "Medival Manhattan"). Disappointingly, this charming place seemed to us much to have sold its soul to commercialism.





Pisa:

While the tower of course was a marvel (much more impressive when seeing it in person), the town central was fascinating owing for the most part to a lively population comprised nearly 60% of students at the University of Pisa (founded in 1343).



Finally, for the journal question (complete the phrase) from Monday: If I could write a memoir it would be called Doggedness. 


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