Under the Tuscan Sun

Before we headed down to Rome we all wanted to see some of the famous tuscan countryside.  We discussed renting a car but in the end decided on booking a bus tour instead.  Our bus left at 8:30am and the first stop was Siena.

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Siena has a huge center square in which twice a year they hold horses races.  There are 17 neighborhoods in Siena and at each race ten neighborhoods compete.  It's fascinating because they discourage if not ban betting on the horse races because it's only for fun and glory.  To read more about it, check out the wikipedia page.

Church in Siena

Inside of the church shown above.  The columns were black and white striped.

Lunch was at an organic farm and vineyard.  We took a short tour of their wine making processes and then were sat down outside overlooking an amazing view of the surrounding area.  Lunch was a slice of garlic bread, a small bowl of pasta in red sauce, salad, slices of cheese and ham and for me an omelette as well. With lunch we were served a white wine, two red wines (chianti and cabernet sauvignon) and a dessert wine with biscotti to dip in the wine.  The dessert wine was almost sickly sweet, but the biscotti tasted really good dipped in it.

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After our delicious meal with lots of wine we stopped in San Gimignano.  The city is on a hill surrounded by a wall and the bus had to drop us off at the bottom of town outside the wall.  There is a world winning gelato place in town so, naturally, we had to try it.  It was good, although not much different from others we had tried.  After wandering around town for about an hour we were back on the bus.

The last stop, Pisa, was a solid hour and a half away and most of us napped on the bus ride over.  The leaning tower of Pisa was pretty cool to see in person but that is almost literally all there is to see in town.  Fortunately because we were part of a bus tour, we were taken on a choo choo train (tour guides words, not mine) ride through Pisa, confirming that there really isn't anything more to see in Pisa.

Our tour guide showing us how to get the iconic Pisa picture.

Back in Florence the tour guide suggested a small restaurant that served a three course meal for a set price.  It was around a twenty minute wait to get seated and for 13 euro we each received a starter, main course, vegetable side dish, and 1/4 liter of wine.