A Special Day in Tuscany

We got picked up at 7:30am from our hostel to begin our “Special Day in Tuscany.” We keep putting that in quotes because, A) it’s funny, and B) that was the name of the tour. We made it very clear when we booked it that if it wasn’t special, we didn’t want to do it. The van that picked us up took us to the meeting point for all of the other folks on the tour. It took everyone a little while to get there but we finally grew to a sizeable group of 18. We made friends with the couple behind us and found out that they were both in the Navy and that Matt was stationed in Sicily (tough life) while Amy was stationed back in the States. They both had leave so they decided to take a romantic trip around Italy. When we finally got going, we learned that the tour was going to be conducted in both English and Spanish, which proved to be very interesting. The tour guide was Italian, but she would say everything in English first, followed by Spanish. According to Katie, her Spanish was way better than her English so Katie got to do a teeny bit of translating for Rachael. We were on the bus for about an hour or so before we reached the town of Pisa, as in Leaning Tower of. You might have heard of it. We had an hour to check it out and take all the funny/obligatory photos.

Silly Rachael, that ain't what we're looking for!

This is!

There were lots of booths set up selling all sorts of fun Leaning Tower souvenirs. Katie’s personal favorite was the Leaning Tower mug that was, in fact, leaning. While taking photos, we ran into a couple that we recognized from our bus and swapped cameras so we could photograph each other. We’d heard the girl call her boyfriend Mario, but we didn’t know her name so we began referring to her as Luigi. We chatted a lot on our way back to the bus and learned that they are engaged and Mario lives in Sarasota and Luigi (aka, Jessica) is studying in Bristol, England right now. She was on spring break so Mario came over to visit for a couple weeks. We used our entire hour to take pictures and ended up with quite a few winners. Let us know what you think:

After Pisa, we drove for a little over an hour to the town of San Gimignano where we had a small Tuscan lunch and wine tasting. We were seated at the end of a long table with Mario and Luigi and another couple who we found out were married and live outside of Washington DC. We each got to taste four different wines and we had a light lunch that was basically a sampler of bruschetta, salami, prosciutto, a couple of cheeses, some sort of liver paté and a pretty good bean porridge thingy.

However, there was a little lost in translation. Prior to our meal, our tour guide had been explaining all of these delicious Tuscan specialties before we arrived for our lunch in San Gimignano. One of the items she described in mouth-watering detail was a grilled steak that Katie thought we were supposed to be served. Turns out she was wrong, that little paper thin sliver of salami was our steak. A light lunch it was for Katie who decided she’d better save room for the steak! Oops. After lunch, we set out with our newfound friends to check out the town of San Gimignano, also called the Town of a Thousand Towers. There used to be a lot more towers, but there were only 14 remaining. We learned that each family would build a tower and the taller the tower was, the richer the family was. It turned into a big competition to see who could build the biggest and best tower so they were pretty spectacular. We also found a neat lookout point where we were able to take some great photos of the Tuscan countryside.

After our photo op, Rachael, realizing we were in the Chianti region, went in search of wine to purchase while Katie went on a hunt for gelato in the few minutes we had before meeting back up with our group. Both missions were accomplished and everyone was happy!

When we boarded the bus, we had about an hour drive to the town of Siena. Most of us took this opportunity to snooze. When we arrived in Siena, we met up with a tour guide who showed us around her town. We went to the Torre del Mangia in the Piazza del Campo where they hold the Palio horse race every year. She told us the story of the horse race and then we booked it to the cathedral because it was almost closing time. We got there just in time for the cathedral’s bouncers to tell us it was a no-go. Things closed early this week because of Holy Week. So much for that tour!

We still had about an hour before we had to meet up with our group so what were we supposed to do? Shop and eat gelato, of course! We worked our way back to the “square” (it’s actually in the shape of a seashell) where we were supposed to meet up later and found Mario and Luigi sitting in the warm sunshine so we decided to join them. While chatting and waiting for our meeting time, we learned that Mario and Luigi had planned to go to Venice the next day but heard how expensive it was and were considering a change of plans. They’d heard how wonderful Cinque Terre was (so had we) and were toying with the idea of going there instead. Well, we knew we wanted to do Cinque Terre, but we were going to wait and do it while making our way from Italy to Spain. We told them we’d go with them to Cinque Terre if they decided to do that instead of Venice. After chatting for a bit, it was time to meet our group again so they told us they’d get back to us on that plan.

While walking back to the bus, we chatted with our DC buddies, Maria and her husband. Before boarding the bus and heading back to Florence, someone had the brilliant idea for all six of us (DC couple, Sarasota couple and Woodmere Gang) to go get dinner together. We had about a two-hour drive back to Florence during which we mostly snoozed . When we got back to Florence, it was getting dark and brrr-cold, so we all decided to run to our hotels/hostels and layer up before dinner. We all met at Mario and Luigi’s hotel and headed out to dinner. We found a neat (and CHEAP) restaurant that Mario had found the day before so we ate there and all shared a bottle of wine. We had such a good time together that we didn’t want the night to end so we all got gelato together and went back to Mario and Luigi’s hotel to hang out for a bit and Facebook each other. Now our friendships are official! Maria and her husband were heading to Venice fairly early the next morning, so they decided to call it a night. We all hugged and promised to call if we were ever in the DC area and said our goodbyes. (We miss you already, guys!) At this point, Mario and Jessica (we knew her well enough to call her by her name now) finally made the decision to go to Cinque Terre instead of Venice, so it was time to plan! Our planning consisted of almost emailing Pall (the tour “guyd” we met in Florence Sunday night), checking train times and thinking about finding a place to stay once we got there. There were still a couple of things we all wanted to see in Florence before heading out the next day, such as the Ponte Vecchio bridge (by day) and the Uffizzi Gallery so we decided to meet at Mario and Jessica’s hotel with all of our luggage around 8:15 the next morning, leave our bags in their room while we all did some last minute sightseeing together and then grab our bags before heading to the train station. We bid them adieu for the evening, went back to our hostel and packed up our backpacks and a new suitcase full of wine and goodies so that we could have an easy start early in the morning.