I will skip the part where we almost missed our flight on account of a certain unreliable airport shuttle company, and fast forward to the first stop in our Pisa - Florence - San Gimignano - Sienna - Chianti itinerary.
PISA
I don't remember who first told me about the Leaning Tower of Pisa...probably my mom...but I remember wanting to see it since I was a kid. I don't know what's up with my childhood Italian fascination, but this was also the case for Vesuvius and Pompeii :D
Pisa itself is a lovely ancient town on the western coast of Italy. The coolest fact about Pisa (in my eyes anyways) is that Galileo used to conduct his gravitational experiments by dropping all sorts of stuff from the Leaning Tower. I thought about reenacting that, but they had nets around the tower :( The town is split into 2 parts, separated by the river Arno - the old and the new Pisa. It is in the old part that you can find the main attractions - the Leaning Tower, the Duomo (church), and the Baptistry. Our hotel was in the new part of the town, but it was kind of a bit of a castle. At least 200 hundred years old, winding staircases, stone walls...definitely fitting in with the town look and feel.
We spent our day exploring the city and staging a photoshoot around the leaning tower... :D Here are a few highlights!
A school in the centre of the town...nicest school I've ever seen!
The Duomo
Whoa, the tower is falling!
Don't worry, I'll fix it...hehe
City view from the tower. I love the orange houses!
Elena and I on top of the tower
Town view
The tower at sunset. No photoshop people, it really did glow gold like this!
FLORENCE
Florence was our Tuscan stop number 2 - an easy 80 minute ride from Pisa. We arrived at lunchtime on Saturday to find ourselves in the midst of the weekend market activity. We ventured out to find a pizza place (which we did find, and it was delicious!), getting lost in the winding streets littered with stalls selling leather, knits and Christmas goodies. I ended up buying a scarf which I now love :)
I want to call Florence the quintessential Italian city - large enough to have things to see and do, yet small enough to keep its charm, long winding streets uphill and downhill, century old houses, squares and court yards dominated by churches, and a sea of pizzerias and gellaterias. I didn't know this before coming there, but it turns out that Florence was the birthplace of renaissance, and is considered an art and science capital of Europe, as pretty much every single renaissance artist and scientist was from Florence.
Unfortunately, the museums decided to go on strike right when we arrived there, so we couldn't see any of the Michelangelo works, or the real statue of David...we did see the whole of Florence from the outside though hehe. My only other complaint is the lack of nightlife, or at least the nightlife that we wanted in the form of clubs and lounges. We did find one club though, but were promptly turned away from it on account of being too old for their high school kid night. A very sad night indeed hehe.
The City Xmas tree in the main square
The Duomo - view from the top
City view - again, love the orangeness of it all! It actually look like the city is littered with castles. I kept thinking of Rapunzel all the time hehe
Views of Arno
The city park was closed, but we got to walk along the park wall...
The David statue replica outside the palace museum. We never got to see the real deal because the museum was closed. And yes, there's a lot of nakedness in Florence...
My friends, Galileo and Newton
CHIANTI
Ah, the home of Mark's favourite wine...which as I learned, is classified by having a composition of at least 75% San Gimignano grapes...or at least 85% if it's a Reserve. If I write it down here, I won't forget it like I did with all the other wine facts I ever learned :)
We did a lovely day tour of the Chianti region (a Tuscany sub-region). Chianti is most known for its beautiful landscapes, vineyards (which go hand in hand), and medieval towns. We started our day in the old medieval city, but presently a village, of San Gimignano, where we climbed a thousand year old watch tower and learned that the village has way too many torture museums for its population of 7000. Sienna, with its beautiful downward sloping cobble stone main square where we had sipping chocolate was our stop number two. We closed the day by visiting a vineyard where we had a yummy tasting of the local wines and produce, such as cheese, olive oil and sausages. We were hosted by some great hosts - Marco, a local award winning winemaker and his lovely wife Adriana, and left buzzed on generous portions of wine and grappa. :)
Spectacular Tuscan landscape. I could only imagine how beautiful it is in the summer!
Fortress walls in San Gimignano
Torture museum #1...out of like 5...people must've really liked torturing each other back then
View from the top of the watch tower (we actually had to climb a ladder part of the way to get to the top!)
Sienna's main square
...and main church. Every Italian city has a main church hehe
I ordered hot chocolate, or cioccolata calda, and got a cup of sipping chocolate. Obviously, I didn't complain!
This was the cutest thing I've ever seen. The horsey and the sheep live in the vineyard that we went to visit, and when our minibus pulled up, the little sheep got scared and ran up to his horse friend for protection. They stayed there cuddling until we left them alone. Precious!
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