We were up at 7 am for our Tuscany day trip and were out of our hotel at 8:20 am after getting ready and having breakfast. We reached the meeting point of the tour at the train station that's a five minute walk from our hotel. The tour started around 9 am and we got seats in the top deck of the air conditioned double decker bus.
Our first stop was the village of San Gimignano that was about an hour's drive away. Tuscany is the name of the region that's north of Rome and encompasses a diverse landscape from beaches to mountains to Chianti's famous vineyards and olive groves. The major cities of this region are Florence, Siena and Pisa so technically, we've already spent two days in Tuscany. In the context of today's bus tour, Tuscany referred to a few highlights outside of Florence. Specifically, we were going to see the village of San Gimignano, have lunch at a farm/vineyard in Chianti, do a walking tour of Siena and then end with a quick trip to the walled castle of Monteriggioni.
The village of San Gimignano is famous for its medieval towers. At its peak, there were about 70 towers in this town, 14 of which survive today. It's sometimes referred to as the Manhattan of medieval times. Walking through the village makes you feel like you're back in the Italy of medieval times with winding cobblestone paths, stone walls and high medieval towers. It's a fairly small village with two squares - the square with the well and the Cathedral square. We walked to the square with the well and bought gelato at a Gelateria that had won the first place in the world gelato competition twice. Samia got Nutella hazelnut, mint and yogurt flavors and I got mango, coffee and yogurt. We sat in the shade on a marble bench in an old resting area in one corner of the Cathedral square and savored our gelato, a great way to get respite from the heat. Then we explored the town on foot before walking back to our bus around noon and drove for about an hour to our next stop in the Chianti region.
Chianti is famous for its vineyards that arguably produce the best wines in the world. Driving through the Chianti valley with green vineyards and olive groves in all directions till the horizon was a picturesque drive and it felt like we were part of a landscape painting. We stopped at the Casafrassi farm and vineyard where the owner gave us a primer in the composition of different wines. He explained that the Chianti Classico wines are the ones that are at least 80% Sangiovese grapes whereas all Chianti wines less than 80% are simply Chianti wines. Then we had lunch which comprised bruschetta, cheese and salad for appetizers, pasta with tomato sauce for the main course and panna cotta for dessert. The pasta was delicious despite being very simple and the dessert was also great.
After lunch, we drove for about half an hour to our next stop of Siena. Siena used to be Florence's rival back in the day before the plague but while Florence lost about half its people to the plague, Siena lost almost 90% of its people and was never able to recover. Shortly after that, it was conquered by Florence. We did a walking tour of the town where we saw the main "square" that is in the shape of a shell unlike most square-shaped or rectangular-shaped squares of Europe. The town of Siena still holds an annual horse race in the main square to determine which of the 19 districts will get to be the caretaker of the canvas of Virgin Mary for that year. The square also has the main town hall of Siena. Then we walked to the cathedral of Siena which has a magnificent outer facade. Once Siena ran out of money, they decided to complete a smaller portion of the cathedral than was originally planned and this has left a few walls without marble on them that are now outside the boundaries of the cathedral. The walking tour ended in the square next to the cathedral so we sat there for a few minutes before making our way back to the tour meeting point and then to our bus.
We drove for another half an hour to our final stop of the day, the walled castle of the village of Monteriggioni. It's a relatively small castle atop a hill and the walls are is still intact. You have the option of walking on the walls to admire the Tuscan landscape. We spent a few minutes in the castle main square and then headed back to the bus. It took us another hour of drive and we reached Florence at about 7:30 pm. The bus dropped us off just a couple of minutes walk from our hotel so we walked back and rested for about an hour. It had been a tiring day with the walking tour of hilly Siena being the most taxing.
We asked our hotel concierge to give us a casual dining recommendation close to the hotel since we didn't want to walk too much. He told us that the trattoria adjacent to our hotel was a decent option. We went there and our dinner was grilled vegetables and bruschetta for appetizer followed by eggplant parmigiana and a thin-crust pizza with eggplant and zucchini. I also discovered a spicy variant of the extra virgin olive oil that you always get with the complimentary bread so my pizza and bread had a nice zing to it. After a tiring day of exploring the highlights of Tuscany, we went to bed knowing that we don't have anything planned in the morning so we'll be able to sleep in and rest. Till the next update, take care and ciao!
Our first stop was the village of San Gimignano that was about an hour's drive away. Tuscany is the name of the region that's north of Rome and encompasses a diverse landscape from beaches to mountains to Chianti's famous vineyards and olive groves. The major cities of this region are Florence, Siena and Pisa so technically, we've already spent two days in Tuscany. In the context of today's bus tour, Tuscany referred to a few highlights outside of Florence. Specifically, we were going to see the village of San Gimignano, have lunch at a farm/vineyard in Chianti, do a walking tour of Siena and then end with a quick trip to the walled castle of Monteriggioni.
The village of San Gimignano is famous for its medieval towers. At its peak, there were about 70 towers in this town, 14 of which survive today. It's sometimes referred to as the Manhattan of medieval times. Walking through the village makes you feel like you're back in the Italy of medieval times with winding cobblestone paths, stone walls and high medieval towers. It's a fairly small village with two squares - the square with the well and the Cathedral square. We walked to the square with the well and bought gelato at a Gelateria that had won the first place in the world gelato competition twice. Samia got Nutella hazelnut, mint and yogurt flavors and I got mango, coffee and yogurt. We sat in the shade on a marble bench in an old resting area in one corner of the Cathedral square and savored our gelato, a great way to get respite from the heat. Then we explored the town on foot before walking back to our bus around noon and drove for about an hour to our next stop in the Chianti region.
Chianti is famous for its vineyards that arguably produce the best wines in the world. Driving through the Chianti valley with green vineyards and olive groves in all directions till the horizon was a picturesque drive and it felt like we were part of a landscape painting. We stopped at the Casafrassi farm and vineyard where the owner gave us a primer in the composition of different wines. He explained that the Chianti Classico wines are the ones that are at least 80% Sangiovese grapes whereas all Chianti wines less than 80% are simply Chianti wines. Then we had lunch which comprised bruschetta, cheese and salad for appetizers, pasta with tomato sauce for the main course and panna cotta for dessert. The pasta was delicious despite being very simple and the dessert was also great.
After lunch, we drove for about half an hour to our next stop of Siena. Siena used to be Florence's rival back in the day before the plague but while Florence lost about half its people to the plague, Siena lost almost 90% of its people and was never able to recover. Shortly after that, it was conquered by Florence. We did a walking tour of the town where we saw the main "square" that is in the shape of a shell unlike most square-shaped or rectangular-shaped squares of Europe. The town of Siena still holds an annual horse race in the main square to determine which of the 19 districts will get to be the caretaker of the canvas of Virgin Mary for that year. The square also has the main town hall of Siena. Then we walked to the cathedral of Siena which has a magnificent outer facade. Once Siena ran out of money, they decided to complete a smaller portion of the cathedral than was originally planned and this has left a few walls without marble on them that are now outside the boundaries of the cathedral. The walking tour ended in the square next to the cathedral so we sat there for a few minutes before making our way back to the tour meeting point and then to our bus.
We drove for another half an hour to our final stop of the day, the walled castle of the village of Monteriggioni. It's a relatively small castle atop a hill and the walls are is still intact. You have the option of walking on the walls to admire the Tuscan landscape. We spent a few minutes in the castle main square and then headed back to the bus. It took us another hour of drive and we reached Florence at about 7:30 pm. The bus dropped us off just a couple of minutes walk from our hotel so we walked back and rested for about an hour. It had been a tiring day with the walking tour of hilly Siena being the most taxing.
We asked our hotel concierge to give us a casual dining recommendation close to the hotel since we didn't want to walk too much. He told us that the trattoria adjacent to our hotel was a decent option. We went there and our dinner was grilled vegetables and bruschetta for appetizer followed by eggplant parmigiana and a thin-crust pizza with eggplant and zucchini. I also discovered a spicy variant of the extra virgin olive oil that you always get with the complimentary bread so my pizza and bread had a nice zing to it. After a tiring day of exploring the highlights of Tuscany, we went to bed knowing that we don't have anything planned in the morning so we'll be able to sleep in and rest. Till the next update, take care and ciao!
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