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Heading to Tuscany

September 2023
A 18-day adventure by Laurie Read more
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  • Laurie ReynoldsHeading to Tuscany
    1
    Day 1

    On our way

    September 5, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 30 °C

    When I came home from my Camino this year, Joe was feeling a little left out. So when he said — I’d love to go back to Italy one more time — I volunteered to make that happen. Big sacrifice, I know. So here we are in O’Hare. I had my moments when I thought it wouldn’t happen, but Joe has been really motivated to keep his physical activity up, do balance exercises, walk a few miles a day, all these things that usually I have to nag about. So it’s really a win-win.

    Hotels are now the way for us to go, so I found a nice one in Florence with a fitness center and got a room for a week. We are not going to do the rush-rush-rush tourist agenda of our younger days. One attraction a day and that is it. Rest of the time for cappucinos, piazzas, walking, and eating. No David this time. Maybe the Uffizi, but no crushing to see Venus. But I will climb as many towers as I can while Joe is napping.

    After Florence, I think we will go to Cinque Terre, Lucca, and Siena. But that is all subject to change depending on how our week in Florence goes. I wasn’t sure about how Cinque Terre would be for Joe’s somewhat limited mobilitiy, but a recommended boat ride option convinced me! Small boat for 8 people, prosecco on board with some charcuterie, I can deal with that. So the current plan is to spend three nights in Monterosso (northernmost town in Cinque Terre) , two in Lucca and two in Siena. It will be crowded, I know, but the weather looks great and we will just deal with the crowds.

    We have, I think, a great way to get to Florence. Champaign-Chicago-Barcelona-Florence. Left Champaign at 2:30 pm and we should arrive in Florence by about 1 pm. We are in Chicago and will soon be taking off. .One leg down, two to go!    Read more

  • Laurie ReynoldsHeading to Tuscany
    Day 2

    Arrived in Florence

    September 6, 2023 in Italy ⋅ 🌙 24 °C

    When we were waiting to deplane in Barcelona, the guy behind me got a call from the friend he was meeting up with and learned that the immigration control line was two hours long. Since our flight to Florence was leaving in less than an hour, and the next flight to Florence was at 8 pm, I was a bit concerned. But I had made a resolution that this was to be a no-stress zen trip, so I just crossed my fingers.

    Turns out the liine was endless, but there was a separate line for connecting flights. Our very own security check, our very own immigration official, and we were through in a few seconds. Made the flight to Florence in plenty of time, then whizzed out of the airport since we had no checked luggage, and got a taxi to our hotel.

    Our hotel is a bit faded, but it checked all the boxes - in an old building, in the historic center (though on the edge), with a fitness center and elliptical. And the staff are oh so helpful and friendly. After lunch in one of the four cute cafés within a stone’s throw of our hotel, Joe took a nap while I went to the elliptical. I was determined not to take a nap (that always messes me up with jet lag), so I got Joe up and we walked down to the real action near the Ponte Vecchio, Piazza Signoria, Duomo. It is CROWDED. Definitely high season. But we don’t notice it much in our area, where most of the patrons in our lunch café were Italians.

    500 m walk to the restaurant for dinner, across the river — Cambi. I am always a sucker for pasta, and the tagliatelli with mushrooms and cream sauce was quite good! Lots of people eating steak florentine, but a big chunk of beef just didn’t appeal.

    Time for bed, hoping to wake up early but if I sleep in, oh well.    Read more

  • Laurie ReynoldsHeading to Tuscany
    Day 3

    Church with a view

    September 7, 2023 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    I slept through the night and woke up with no jet lag at 7:15. Woo hoo! Joe was still asleep, so I headed out for an early walk, down to the center of the historic center. Lots of activity there, not the tourists, but those preparing for the tourists — street cleaners, delivery trucks, people going into buildings filled with apartment rentals carrying bundles of sheets and towels, a lot of hustle and bustle. Walking over the Ponte Vecchio with only a handful of people on it, sitting in the square in front of Santa Croce without long lines of tour groups, it was all very pleasant.

    When I am tempted to complain about “the tourists,” I usually think of my favorite billboard, somewhere outside Atlanta on an always crowded interstate. This is a billboard put up by the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition and it says “You aren’t STUCK in traffic. You ARE traffic.” Same applies here.

    I waited to have breakfast with Joe, and it was very good. Our destination for today was the Church of San Miniato. Romanesque, up high with beautiful views. The story of the Saint whose relics are there (at least as told by Guide Michelin) is a bit less than glorious. Apparently he was a Tuscan ruffian, not an Armenian king on pilgrimage to Rome. His miracles included being thrown into a dungeon with lions and emerging unscathed, and then climbing the hill where the church stands carrying his own severed head. The church is peaceful, uncrowded and we were lucky to hear the organist practicing — there’s always something wonderful about organs playing in ancient spacious churches!

    We had taken a cab up, and the idea was that we would walk back to the hotel. As we descended the hill (stopping in a café for a long while) and crossed the bridge, it seemed a shame not to continue on a couple hundred meters to get to Santa Croce. A few hundred years later than San Miniato and much grander, there’s a good cross section of Italy’s best and brightest buried there — Galieo, Michaelangelo, Machiavelli, Rossini. Very very beautiful, inside and out.

    I saw a lot of people eating good-looking sandwiches with the same wrapper and got directions. Turns out it’s a very famous sandwich shop. Long line moved fast! All’Antico Vinaio. Joe and I couldn’t even finish one, but it was YUMMY. We will probably return.

    We followed our tried and true routine of getting back to the hotel by 3:30 or so, so Joe could nap while I went to the elliptical and had some time to write up this little piece of prose. Someone tried to get out through the fire escape, and it set off a piercing alarm. Joe did not stir, so I know he’s getting some deep sleep!

    We’ll head out for dinner around 7:30. This is a great routine for us, and Joe really seems to be enjoying it so far!    Read more

  • Laurie ReynoldsHeading to Tuscany
    Day 4

    Medici day

    September 8, 2023 in Italy ⋅ 🌙 26 °C

    It's getting a little hotter, pushing 90 now. I took my early morning walk around the San Lorenzo district, doing reconnaissance for our visit later this morning to the Medici chapels, San Lorenzo church, the palace. The main market was just opening and it's always fun to walk around a real market.

    We are falling into a good routine-- I walk for a couple hours, we eat breakfast, we head out to the destination, we sprinkle our visit liberally with cafe stops. After lunch, back to the hotel for Joe to nap.

    We spent the morning in Medici territory - the San Lorenzo church, which was the church for the Medici family and close to their palace. It has a beautiful Annunciation by Fra Lippo Lippi (I remember him and Fra Angelico, whose Annunciation is in the Prado, from my Spanish Art class in 1970!) We also went to the Medici Chapels, a huge, ornate, imposing pantheon with only 5 people buried inside, I guess they were the most important Medici, because the rest of the line has far more humble tombs. There are even a few Michaelangelo statues. My takeaway of the Medici family is that they had a very impressive trajectory -- from little known merchants and "modest money changers" to the creators of an impressive business empire and control of the city, along with their patronage of the arts of course!

    While Joe napped, I substituted my elliptical workout for a climb up the cathedral dome, and then to the top of the bell tower. It's been a bit complicated figuring out how I can do the climbs, which require timed entry, and still coincide the rest of my visit with Joe's timed entry for the non-climbing part of the visit. Hopefully we can visit the cathedral and the Baptistery together tomorrow.

    It was the hottest part of the day when I got to the cathedral, but the wind at the top of the 481 steps (416 for the bell tower) was so refreshing. Lots of great views after so many twisty turny steps up.

    Our hotel has been making our dinner reservations and so far so good! We had a nice walk to the plaza in front of Santa Maria Novela and then hoofed it to Armando’s Trattoria.

    Get Outlook for iOS    Read more

  • Laurie ReynoldsHeading to Tuscany
    Day 5

    Cathedral Day

    September 9, 2023 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    My morning jaunt started at the train station to see about a day trip to Pisa. We have time and it’s close! Trains run frequently and are cheap. I got the Pisa info I needed and went to the Santa Maria Novella piazza (my favorite so far) to watch the day come to life.

    Since Joe is the world’s slowest cappucino drinker, and since he wanted two this morning, I had plenty of time to talk with the concierge guy about visiting Pisa for a day, buying tickets, etc. He suggested that hiring a driver would be so much easier for Joe (using him as an excuse for my taking the easy way out!). Problem solved.

    Today was our day to visit the cathedral. I had done the climbing parts yesterday afternoon, so this was all about the ground floor and below. Cathedral, museum, baptistery. The cathedral itself is not one of my favorites, though the dome is very impressive. Too bad they tore down the Romanesque predecessor. The book says it’s gothic trending to early Renaissance, but it is awfully clunky and imposing inside to my way of thinking. Though I am surely no expert. Some remains have been excavated below the current cathedral floor, going all the way back to a Roman home, an early Christian church, and Romanesque Santa Raparata. The museum houses tons of pieces that were removed from the gothic cathedral when the marble was put on; they are displayed beautifully. There’s a pieta (not completely finished) by Michaelangelo that was to be for his own tomb, but apparently he stopped working on it because he found too many imperfections in the marble. The romanesque baptistery has beautiful mosaics; some are in scaffolding for restoration, but there was a lot to ooh and ahh over.

    Just a note about the timed entry tickets. Seems like it should work great, but the problem is that there is one line for which some people have timed entry and some don’t. Too complicated to explain. As a result, there was a lot of screaming and shouting and pushing when four of us made our way to the front at our assigned time, and at the direction of staff. One large group was particularly angry because they also had timed entry, but had been waiting in line for 45 minutes, not knowing they were supposed to jump the line when it was their time. Luckily there was a couple from Wisconsin with us and we stood firm. I am not sure why the staff who motioned us to the front did not come to our defense when the shouting and shoving started, but it made for some excitement!

    For the first time, there was someone else with me in the hotel’s small fitness center. Good to have another body in there moving around to keep the lights from going off so frequently. Minor annoyance, not a complaint, I am very grateful for it. We have a dinner reservation in a place highly recommended by friends. It’s in a part of town we haven’t been to, so we’ll take a cab over early and walk around a bit.    Read more

  • Laurie ReynoldsHeading to Tuscany
    1
    511
    Day 6

    Uffizi

    September 10, 2023 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    This morning was a good time to do some wash. That will postpone the need for a laundromat trip, and it’s pretty depressing to sit inside a laundromat while you’re in a beautiful place. I had left stuff soaking last night, and my handy dandy lagarto soap was all I needed. 5 minutes of scrubbing and that was it. Walking the camino every year makes me an expert in this particular domestic chore.

    The crowds at the Uffizi were very large, especially around the Botticellis, no doubt about it. But the medieval rooms much less so. I love the slightly byzantine Madonnas. And there in front of me, at the bottom of a large picture of three saints, was a hat with a scallop shell. I had been hoping to see Santiago, but he was pretty much going incognito in this picture. I wonder why his scallop shell was so well hidden. And I’m also not sure how I was lucky enough to see it!

    All in all, the visit was not the terrible crush I had feared. Joe particularly enjoyed stopping at all the Roman busts lining the two long hallways, seeing if he could remember a bit of trivia about the particular emperor or god depicted.

    We spent a long while on the rooftop cafe enjoying being within spitting distance of the Palazzo Vecchio. I’ve found the perfect substitute for my much loved Fanta de Limón (a camino favorite). Here it’s “Lemon Soda” (and the can proudly proclaims that it’s “solo limoni siciliani”).

    I think some quality rest time is on order today, especially since we have an early departure to Pisa tomorrow. And many restaurants are closed on Sunday anyway. On the way back to our hotel, we passed the only sandwich shop that has ever been the subject of a New Yorker article, I’ll bet.
    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/04/25/t…
    I brought two back for dinner in the little sitting area off our bedroom, and we will take a stroll along the river before bed.    Read more

  • Laurie ReynoldsHeading to Tuscany
    11
    Day 7

    Pisa

    September 11, 2023 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C

    Originally I hadn’t included a stop in Pisa, but several friends recommended it, and we had an extra bit of time in Florence, so why not? It was another hot, sunny day, and Pisa was crowded crowded crowded, but the monumental complex is, well, very monumental.

    The travel part was easy, with the driver showing up at our door at 8:30 and dropping us off about 6 hours later. We didn’t have a whole day to explore more of the city, and I decided to keep us centered in the cathedral square rather than rush around to see some more monuments. This was the perfect length of trip for Joe and allowed us to see things at leisure and enjoy another café up several stories high and looking out over the tower.

    I was actually a little cynical about the leaning tower before we got there, but it really does take your breath away up close. It looks like it has been cleaned very recently and it is a sparkling white marble beauty. And in spite of all the people posing to place their hands so the photo looks like they are holding up the tower, it was easy to get an unobstructed view and enjoy its intricate and ornate carved arches. Actually, there was beauty aplenty, given that there are three romanesque buildings (baptistery, cathedral and tower) all within a few hundred feet of each other. I did not climb the tower, but was more than content with the views of the outside. The cathedral and the Baptistery had lots to see and admire, too. The height of the arches in the cathedral was gasp-inducing, two rows of barrel vaulted perfection. There are also some beautiful mosaics of Christ the Pantócrato behind the altar, but it was hard to get very close to them.

    I had never heard of the Camposanto (though Michelin tells me it is as famous as the other buildings). It’s a 13th century burial ground, more than 600 graves, an open-aired long rectangular nave surrounded by romanesque arches filled in with delicate beautiful gothic lacing. It looks just like a huge cloister inside. The walls had some huge 14th century murals involving macabre death scenes and the last judgment. Appropriate for a cemetery.

    We have one day left in Florence, and no major sites left to see. I had planned to go to the Archaeological Museum, but this trip was so nice that I asked if we could do it again tomorrow. We are still undecided between Arezzo and San Gimignano (again, based on recommendations of some good buddies), but either option looks great. And yes I know there will be crowds.    Read more

  • Laurie ReynoldsHeading to Tuscany
    1
    Day 8

    Plan B

    September 12, 2023 in Italy ⋅ 🌙 25 °C

    I always write these snippets before we go to dinner, but I woke up this morning remembering last night’s terrific meal (sea bass, seafood pasta, zucchini flower salad with burrata, mint and tomatoes — YUM) but the very best was the lemon sorbet and pistachio biscotti. When I told the waiter how good they were, he brought me a little bag. I am saving them. Osteria di Giovanni, one of the best so far!

    This morning it was pretty clear that Joe was zonked. Not even the lure of a couple of cappucinos did the trick. Time to let him rest. So I was lucky to learn that the driver could come in the afternoon. It means that ultimately we will not get inside Santa Maria Novella (though we have enjoyed many hours sitting at cafés in the plaza with decent music buskers and lots of people enjoying themselves), nor will we get to the Archaeological Museum. We can deal with that. I always try to schedule more time than “needed” in a place so we can adjust if something like this happens, and I’m glad to have this last day in Florence to let Joe recharge. Once again, the elliptical and the lovely café outside our hotel door came to the rescue!

    I got more votes for Arezzo than for San Gimignano, and had decided to go for it. But several people at breakfast this morning raved about San Gimignano. The guys at the desk agreed with them, pointing out that the drive to San Gimignano is more scenic than to Arezzo. My guess is that Arezzo is less touristy and that we would have really enjoyed the frescoes that Irene told me about, but I have to say that San Gimignano was quite nice. And our driver took an off-road route for most of the way, going through that beautiful iconic Tuscan landscape— hills, vineyards, villas, cypress trees. Funny how different the vineyards of Tuscany look from the vineyards of Spain even though the main ingredient is the same.

    It was very crowded — September is absolutely no longer shoulder season. No point in grousing about all the tourists, so we just tried to concentrate on the beauty of the town and the piazzas. Had a cold drink in a little café about two seconds off the main drag where it was quiet, shady, and calm. Then Joe sat on a bench with the old guys while I got him some ice cream. Nocciato (hazelnut) and pistacchio are my hands down favorites.

    So our touring in Florence is done. Our last dinner awaits. Onward tomorrow!    Read more

  • Laurie ReynoldsHeading to Tuscany
    Day 9

    Travel Day

    September 13, 2023 in Italy ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    We left Florence and headed to Cinque Terre by train. I had planned the trip to be as stress-free as possible. Late departure (12:30), 15 minute connection time in Pisa, arrival in Monterosso around 3. I would definitely not want to do this with anything other than carry-ons. Flights of stairs to make connections and no elevator in sight.

    We saw some rocky mountains and Google maps told me it was the Apuan Alps. I saw something that looked like mining, and before I could wonder too much, I saw the name of the town we were passing!

    The owner of our B&B in Monterosso met us at the station to walk with us there. It’s in the historic center, the home where she was born. Very charming. La Poesia.

    Joe took a nap and I followed the walking path out of town for 40 minutes out and then back. Got some pretty good elevation in! I won’t be able to do any of the village to village walks, but I plan to do a bunch of out and back walks when Joe is resting. It’s a beautiful setting and the temperature is great. Crowded, but no surprise there.

    We’re at a very cute tapas place for a light supper. Good restaurants all fill up, so I’ve already made reservations for our next two nights!    Read more

  • Laurie ReynoldsHeading to Tuscany
    111
    Day 10

    Day in Cinque Terre

    September 14, 2023 in Italy ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

    Along with about a million of our closest friends, we spent the day hopping on and off boats to go into some of the little villages that have become tourist magnets. We are tourists and we are magnetized, so how can we complain. The owner of our B&B told us in no uncertain terms that we should chuck our plan of taking the train and stick to the ferry. I was dubious, but followed her advice. She was absolutely right. Entering these villages from the water is so much more beautiful than going through a tunnel to town from the train station. Only one of our boat rides was what I would call crowded, though they all had a good number of passengers. Based on what some people at lunch told us, the trains were being used by big tour groups (only saw one on all our boat rides) and that makes things more difficult.

    We bought a day pass and started out on the 9:30 ferry. We spent about an hour and a half in each town, so Joe could have a gelato and I could climb the local castle or hoof it up to the overlook. We did stay several hours in Manarola, where we had a long and excellent lunch of mussels and some exceptional white anchovies, which I haven’t had in a long time (boquerones in Spain). The towns are all very picturesque, but seem to be totally dedicated to the tourist business. There are vineyards nearby, so someone is making a living doing something other than selling gelato and boat tickets!

    People were all extremely patient and helpful when Joe needed extra hands to navigate some especially unfriendly steps or ramps. No jostling or pushing either. I am glad we came, but I don’t think I would come back, unless it was in the dead of winter. I’m sure I’d love walking the trail, but I think I’m too hooked on the Camino to make a switch to Italy.    Read more

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