Day 19 Florence

A 12 hour day exploring Tuscany. We left at 7 am to walk 20 minutes to our tour meeting place. The streets were very quiet and we stopped for the best coffee yet at a small cafe before joining 77 people on one huge bus taking us to San Gimignano, Monteriggioni, and Sienna. The tour also included lunch and wine tasting in a Chianti family owned vineyard. We really loved the morning in San Gimignano as we had two hours to ourselves wandering around the most beautiful streets, shops and historical squares and towers. It was a truly beautiful place with few others around. Moneriggioni was also interesting being just one square circled by a wall and only 36 citizens. Our lunch was good with all local produce including the wines. It was a very hot day at this point and we were actually pleased to be eating inside and that the glasses of wine were small because what we really needed was water! Our final stop was Sienna where we had some spare time and then a walking tour, which included the cathedral. It is also a fascinating place and we loved seeing where they hold the historical horse races in the square twice a year. The church was simply beautiful and contained many famous paintings. Our guide for this part of the tour was local and a bit hard to understand and when there was a sudden thunder storm she appeared to hurry through her tour and leave us to it- think she wanted to get home and get her washing in! The brief rain was welcome as it cooled the temperature down and seemed to refresh everything. Back on the bus it was hour and half before we arrived back in Florence at 7 pm. We were absolutely exhausted and walked back to a little restaurant a block from where we were staying. We were surprised to find the best pizza yet and with a glass of wine and a beer revived us enough to make it back to our accommodation. We were then treated to the most fabulous fireworks display from our lounge window as today has been a public holiday in Florence celebrating poor old St John the Baptist, the patron saint,whose terrible fate was in several paintings at the Uffizi Gallery!Read more