Touring Tuscany

After my brief stay in Venice I already feel in love with Italy and touring Tuscany only increased that love. Tuscany was everything I would have expected and more! We did a bike ride through the rolling hills, and walked around Florence and Pisa. The first day we did a walking tour around the old town and then crossed the river to try to find a good view of Florence. This turned into quite the adventure. We could see the hill we wanted to walk up on but could not find the way to get to it. We were walking aimlessly until eventually we found a wall behind thick bushes that we could climb and get a decent view of the town. We could tell that others had been there because he glass on top of the wall (to prevent people from climbing it) was all broken off. So after a few hours of hiking and searching here is the result.


As you can see the picture turned out alright but there's a crane blocking the Duomo. Maybe Photoshop can remove it. The Duomo is one of the major attractions in Florence and there is a story behind it that I will tell at the end of this post. Along with the Duomo, a second major attraction is the Old Bridge. Well at least it's a major site for me; I do love my bridges, as Jack and Josh know well after travelling with me for over 40 days. Below is a picture of the Old Bridge, which I originally thought was in Venice. I searched hard for it in Venice and eventually gave up but luckily I found it in Florence. It is almost 700 years old and has survived many floods and is the only bridge in Florence to survive WWII. As you can see I haven't bought a new camera yet because the pink is still in the picture.


The second day in Florence we took a train to Pisa where we got to see the Leaning Tower. Wow, I don't understand how it is standing. It is leaning a lot, I believe 4.8 meters at the top of the structure! On the walk back to the train station we had to stop to get some Gelato as it is irresistible. We had to continue the trend of having Gelato in every Italian city. I'm still searching for the infamous whiskey flavour though. Once at the train station I had a bite of Josh's pizza so know I can say 'I have had a piece of a piece of Pisa pizza in Pisa.' Say that ten times fast.

There have been a lot of beggers and sellers on the side of roads in Pisa and Florence. All of them walking up to us trying to sell us the same stuff over and over. If it's not sunglasses, watches, or belts, it's handbags or even little toys. Luckily when we got out into the countryside there were no beggers and sellers.

We rented bikes and did a 70 km figure 8 from Florence south to Greve in Chianti. I could certainly feel that I hadn't been on a bike since the summer. My legs, arms, and neck were in pain at the end. It was well worth it though. There were a lot of vineyards and small villages along the way with plenty of gorgeous views. I tried a road bike for the first time and they really fly! I was reaching speeds over 50 km/hr on all the downhills, almost passing cars.

The next day we were planning on climbing the Duomo (460 steps). My legs were not looking forward to that but then we found out that it is closed on Mondays. That could be thought of as a good thing but the museum where the statue of David stands was closed as well. So, it turned out to not be good but we are planning on stopping back at Florence after Rome just to do those two things. That's the beauty of an unplanned trip! Instead we left to Rome early to see some of the many Roman sites.

There were 2 trains within 25 minutes of each other leaving for Rome, one at 9:09 and the other at 9:32. The time that day was 9:07 when we found out that the 9:09 train was free and the 9:32 train cost 15 Euros. The people walking through the train station then got a good laugh as we ran as fast as we could to catch the 9:09 train with our huge packs on. Did we make it on the train? You'll have to wait for the Rome post to find out.