Travels to Tuscany

Ciao – we’ve been to Italy!!!

It was fabulous. After taking out a second mortgage to buy a sandwich and water at Charles de Gaulle Airport, we flew to Florence and based ourselves there while we explored the city and some of the Tuscan countryside. All those beautiful photos of Tuscany that you see on travel sites are spot on. Even though Florence was crowded (which you would expect) it wasn’t too bad and for the most part, the weather was perfect.

We saw so much and took a gazillion photos so this time we will break up the blog into a few parts.

View from our hotel overlooking the courtyard of the Medici Palace.

Ponte Vecchio, one of the world’s most famous bridges and home of the most over priced jewelry you will find anywhere.

Day 1 – after a morning of walking around some parts of the city we visited the Uffizi Gallery, (which is not the home of the original statue of David as some people may have thought – learn something every day when travelling) but still plenty of paintings and statues dating back many centuries. It is amazing how well preserved they are, the colours of the paint are still so vivid after 500 or so years.

We call this the Gallery of Awkward Poses. It was during this period that the science of physiotherapy was born.

Day 2 – Bus trip to Tuscany countryside. We hopped on a bus with about 50 other tourists-nearly all American or Australian, and headed out of Florence to see some of the other areas of Tuscany. As well as some picture perfect views of rolling hills we visited Siena, San Gimignano and Pizza, with a stop for lunch at a chianti winery. Here’s the day in pictures:

This was outside the world’s oldest surviving bank – Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, founded in 1472. The faces looking down from under the eaves belong to the who’s who of Italian movers and shakers – Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus..the list goes on.

The things you find out on a guided tour! This little extension is a toilet. Back in the day, people would do their business in these little appendages. Then at night time they could just open the trap door and empty the contents on to the lane below. But not permitted during the daytime.

No Tuscan view is complete without a few olive trees.

The funniest thing about this spot was looking at everyone taking that very original photo of trying to push the tower up or whatever. These are just a few.