A Day Trip to Tuscany

I wanted to make sure Mom, Gary and Jessica had a chance to see Tuscany even though we were only in Florence for 5 days, so ended up booking an 11 hour tour. 11 hours is a really long time to be on a tour... but we managed to pack a lot into that day. I'm not usually terribly fond of the bus tours, but this one went to so many good places for such a reasonable price I decided to try it out. The tour only cost 57 Euros per person which included not only the bus and excellent tour guide (who did the tour in English, French and Spanish at the same time!), but also a local tour guide in Siena, admission to the Cathedral, gelato in San Gimignano and wine tasting and snacks at a winery. Pretty good value if you ask me! Oh, I forgot, they even picked us up at our apartment in a taxi to bring us to the spot where the bus meets!

Our first stop was Monteriggioni. Monteriggioni is a medieval walled town that was built by the Sienese people between 1214 and 1219 as a defence against the Florentines. The town is up on a hilltop so was a natural area to build a defensive post. Apparently, it is also culturally significant because it is referenced in Dante's Divine Comedy. I am not that scholarly, and only know this, because "the google" told me!

We were only in the town for 30 minutes, so basically just did a quick walking around the town and then headed back to the bus. You could also walk on the walls that surrounded this town, but you had to pay 3 Euros, and I don't think it would have been worth it in the limited time we had. It was definitely a cute town, but you don't need much time to see it 😀

Our next stop was our longest stop of the day... Siena.

Steve and I have spent time in Siena previously and love this little town. It is famous for it's Palio, and medieval horse race held twice a year where each person in the town has a vested interest as the contradas (neighbourhoods) compete against each other! The historic centre of Siena has also been declared a Unesco World Heritage Site.

We met our local tour guide in the main square called Piazza del Campo. This is the centre of the historic old town and is a beautiful medieval square!

After listening to important historical information (which you probably know by now, I promptly forgot) from the guide we headed over to the Siena Cathedral. This cathedral is my absolute favourite cathedral in Italy. I remember the first time I walked into it being so struck by it's beauty that it brought tears to my eyes. I know it's weird, but beautiful things make me cry.

The outside of the cathedral is beautiful, but the inside even more so!

The cathedral was built between 1215 and 1263, and holds four architectural styles. My favourite part is the main duomo.

It reminds me of a starry sky. I could have just stood and stared at it forever 😀

There is also a room called the Piccolomini Library. It is absolutely stunning. The frescoes on the ceiling are over 500 years old and maintain incredibly vivid colouring still.

This room also contained huge (I hate using that word now because of DT)... so let's say very large books with notated music. Jessica and I really liked looking at the books... we're just two little bookworms 😀

We headed back into the cathedral for one more look and a lot of information from the tour guide about architectural and culturally significant things (you know I can't tell you what they are...). I spent most of my time just staring up at the duomo!

After leaving the cathedral we headed over to a restaurant to enjoy lunch with our group. The lunch was an extra cost, but was a bargain at 12 Euros for a salad, first course, second course, small dessert and unlimited wine and water!

After lunch we had a bit of time to walk around Siena before heading out on the bus to our next stop of San Gimignano.

Siena has many beautiful buildings to admire as you are walking.

When we arrived in San Gimignano we stopped at a viewpoint to take some photos. The countryside was quite beautiful.

This is where we managed to get one of the only photos we have with all five of us in it (too bad we forgot to turn off the enhanced feature... don't worry... we aren't all burned!)

San Gimignano is another beautiful medieval town (quite a bit smaller than Siena) which is famous for having preserved quite a few of its medieval towers. The town square is also a Unesco World Heritage Site... and simply beautiful 💖

This is where our tour guide gave us a coupon to get a free gelato at the "World Champion Gelato Winner"... who knew that was even a thing?!?

I'm here to tell you that it was delicious!

Mom wasn't satisfied with just the "world champion gelato"... right after she finished she headed across the square to the "world champion ice cream" which she thought was better than the gelato.

Next we headed to look at the panoramic view point. I'm just including this picture of Steve and Jessica because I think they look so cute 😀

You can see behind them that the viewpoint has a little wine bar with a perfect sitting spot for staring endlessly at the view while sipping on some vino rossi. We, unfortunately, did not have time for this. We did have time to look at the view though!