We began our planning about six weeks in advance using the
Internet to make airline reservations, car reservations and to select a place
to stay.
With the benefit of this modern
technology, we were able to use search tools to find the cheapest rental car
and used the cut-rate, no-frills Ryan Airlines, which flies directly from the
small airport in
Charleroi,
Belgium, just a few miles south of
Brussels.
Ryan Airlines uses the Internet almost
exclusively for booking their flights.
Rita and I both flew round-trip from
Brussels
to
Pisa, Italy for about $45 each.
We even found advice on the Internet on how
to avoid long lines at the museums in
Florence
by getting your ticket in advance online.
Our journey to
Pisa
began early Wednesday morning, August 29.
Our flight was at 9:10 so we had to rise early to drive to Charleroi,
park in the airport parking lot and be at check-in two hours before the
flight.
Ryan Airlines serves no snacks
or drinks and has no headphones or music.
There is no assigned seating and we were at the front of the lines far
enough in advance to get front row seats.
The flight took us over the Swiss Alps and, since it was a clear day, we
had great views of
Lake Constance and the
Matterhorn.
We had no problems picking up our rental car,
a Renault Clio with manual transmission, something I haven’t driven in over a
year.
We headed into downtown
Pisa and Rita did a super
job of navigation here and the entire trip.
We found the Piazza di Miracoli where the Duomo (cathedral), Baptistery
and bell tower (Leaning Tower of Pisa) are located.
There were many more tourists here now than the last time we
visited in April 1977.
We toured the
beautiful cathedral, which was begun in 1063, and the circular Baptistery,
which was started in 1153 and took 250 years to complete.
By then it was time for lunch and we opted
for a touristy, outdoor café called Manfredo.
Rita had pizza and I had calzone, which did the job of stopping our
hunger nicely.
It was quite hot in
Tuscany and we were glad
the car had air conditioning.
We headed to our farm B&B that is called an agrotourism
B&B in
Italy.
After about an hour we arrived at Casanova di
Pescille, which is about 1 or 2 kilometers from San Gimignano, a pretty walled
city with fourteen towers and Medieval city walls still standing.
In the Middle Ages it had seventy
towers.
Our B&B was set among olive
trees and vineyards with scenic views of San Gimignano.
We settled in and were pleasantly surprised
to find our room had air conditioning.
We unpacked and took a short nap since it had been a long day by that
time.
In the evening we drove to San
Gimignano, parked the car outside the city walls, and walked around this
beautiful town.
All of
Tuscany
is much more touristy then when we visited in 1977 with numerous shops selling
Tuscan pottery, wines, cheeses, pasta and T-shirts.
And there were hordes of tourists, especially
Germans.
But what can you expect in August?
Even with every little farm turned into a
B&B or restaurant, there is still much to see and experience in
Tuscany.
We walked down the main street that goes from one end of
town to the other.
We passed through the
Piazza della Cisterna and Piazza del Duomo where we toured the Collegiate
church of
Santa Maria
Assunta.
Tuscan churches and cathedrals
have interiors covered with frescoes and mosaics.
They don’t usually charge to go into these
churches but we noticed they keep them dark and there are machines with coin
slots that light up the painting or fresco when one deposits the right amount
of money.
Clever!
We had an early dinner at a restaurant called Griglia.
I started with gnocchi in cheese sauce while
Rita had prosciutto ham with melon.
For
mains I had osso buco (veal shank) and Rita had rissotto with mushrooms.
We had a very nice local white wine called
Vernaccia di San Gimignano.
It was a
nice meal with views overlooking the valley.
We went back to our lodgings and sat outside a while watching the stars.
Thursday was another warm, sunny day with scattered thunderstorms
in the afternoon.
We slept in and had
our breakfast in the little building where Roberto, our host, met us each
morning and served breakfast.
We started
the day off with cappuccino as we would every morning here.
Then we drove to San Gimignano and walked
around more back streets and visited the fortress.
Next we drove to Volterra, another scenic, old town up high
on a hilltop.
We toured the cathedral
and baptistery, saw the Etruscan gate, Porta all’Arco, dating from the 4
th
century BC, saw remains of the Roman theatre and walked the pretty streets of
Via dei Sarti and Via Buomparenti.
We
stopped long enough to have sandwiches on panini bread at a bar and then walked
in the archeological park where Etruscan remains are still being unearthed.
From here we drove south to the small town of
Massa Marittima.
This town has a pretty Piazza Garibaldi with
the cathedral extending into the Piazza.
We climbed up steep, narrow streets to the city walls and the Fortezza
dei Senesi e Torre del Candeliere (fortress and tower).
While on the city wall by this tower,
lightning started to strike nearby so we headed back into the piazza and
visited the first of many gelaterias or ice cream shops.
We headed east towards our next stop of the Abbey di San
Galgano.
We drove through heavy rain and
upon arriving there noticed that the main abbey church was without a roof.
We decided to skip this attraction and headed
back to our B&B where we read our books while waiting for our dinner
reservations.
We had dinner at a restaurant called Le Vecchie Mura and
were seated on their terrace overlooking the valley.
We watched as the sun dipped and the lights
of the houses came on.
It was also near
a full moon.
Dinner was okay but not as
good as the setting.
I started with
spaghetti carbonara and grilled veal fillet.
Rita had a local dish, a Tuscan soup called ribollita, a bean and
cabbage stew.
For her main course she
had pork chops in saffron sauce.
We did
have a good Chianti classico reserva with the meal.
Friday was a mix of weather starting out with sun then
clouds then rain and then sun again.
It
was a warm, humid day over all.
We did
rise earlier than usual since we had to drive into
Florence, the biggest city we would
visit.
We were doing just fine and on
time driving into the city when we discovered the bridge we were supposed to
cross was closed for repairs and we had to take a deviation.
What fun!
What stress!
But we recovered
okay, found a parking lot and made it to the Uffizi Gallery just in time for
our 10:15 tickets that we had purchased over the Internet.
And it started to rain just as we entered the
art gallery.
Inside the gallery we
soaked up culture, oodles and oodles of culture!
Most of the museum is dedicated to
renaissance Florentine schools of painting, which were religious in
nature.
But we did enjoy the highlights
such as paintings by Paolo Uccello, Fra Filippo Lippi, Leonardo da Vinci,
Michelangelo, Titian, Tintoretto, and the Botticelli room.
After the Uffizi we walked the short distance to the Ponte
Vecchio, the old bridge with gold jewelry shops along the distance of the
bridge.
After visiting several jewelry
shops, but buying nothing, we walked around
Florence, especially the beautiful Piazza
della Signoria and to the Piazza del Duomo where we toured the ornate cathedral
and baptistery.
The baptistery is best
known for its bronze doors and the mosaics on the interior ceiling.
The cathedral is one of the biggest in the
world with only St. Peter’s in
Rome
being larger.
The
Florence
cathedral at 504 feet long and 293 feet wide is bigger than
St.
Paul in
London and Notre Dame in
Paris.
We walked to the Piazza della Republica and
back to Piazza della Signoria where we had a light lunch at Rivoire, a noted
outdoor café.
Then we toured the Palazzo
Vecchio, a palace with a huge chamber known as the Hall of the Five
Hundred.
We had an Italian chocolate ice
cream treat called a tartufo then decided to head back to the car and San
Gimignano.
Florence
has so much to see, so many art galleries, palaces and churches, that one could
spend a week just in
Florence.
But we were filling up on culture and thought
we would leave the rest of
Florence
for some other trip in the future.
We arrived late in San Gimignano but stopped at a restaurant
and hotel on the outskirts of town that was recommended to us by Roberto.
The restaurant, Da Pode, had room on their
terrace and we had an excellent meal along with a full moon rising in the
evening sky.
I started with great
bruschetta with lots of garlic and tomatoes while Rita had prosciutto with
melon.
Then I had veal with pecorino
cheese and porcini mushrooms along with baked potatoes rubbed in rosemary.
Rita had spinach filled ravioli.
We had another bottle of local Vernaccia
wine.
Saturday we slept in late as the previous day had been so
busy.
Today was planned for the other
great Tuscan town,
Siena.
In the Middle Ages,
Florence,
Siena and
Pisa
were forever battling each other for supremacy.
For periods one would dominate and then the tides would change.
But as it turned out, we think
Siena was our favorite
large Tuscan city.
We really enjoyed the
small walled towns best and they usually weren’t so crowded with tourists.
We headed out on back roads through Colle di val d’Elsa and
saw its city walls as we drove along the outskirts.
Then we came across another town perched on a
hilltop with city walls.
We consulted
our Michelin guidebook to discover that this was Monteriggione.
It turns out that this town, with its
fourteen square towers, is a 13
th century town that Dante mentioned
in his
Divine Comedy. We stopped
and spent some time walking around the pretty town, which put us late to
Siena, but we had no
schedule for the day.
Our highlights in
Siena
were walking down the pretty Via Banchi through the Piazza Salimbeni with three
palaces surrounding it, through Piazza Tolomei with the Tolomei palace to the
great Piazza del Campo.
The Piazza del
Campo is one of the most famous squares in the world with the Palazzo Pubblico
palace on one side and many brown and tan 14
th century buildings
surrounding the fan shaped piazza.
Rita
remembered that as kids, one of our Crayola crayons was either
Siena
or burnt
Siena.
These are the colors of
Tuscany.
We had a good lunch at Antica Trattoria Papei where Rita had
gnocchi and I had spaghetti with tomatoes and bacon.
Then we toured the Palazzo Pubblico but the
tower, Torre del Mangia, was closed.
The
palace has many great wall paintings (frescoes) and the most famous one is the
‘Effects of Good and Bad Government’ painting in the Sala della Pace or Peace
Room.
While we were on the loggia, or
porch, a big thunderstorm struck with lightning striking nearby.
We stayed there and watched the storm for
nearly an hour.
After the storm, the air
was much cooler and most people had light jackets or sweatshirts.
I had a T-shirt and shorts but it was
bearable.
Heavy rain had caused some
local flooding and erosion but we could still walk around and admire the
sights.
We went to the cathedral, which was probably the most
impressive cathedral on this trip.
That’s a hard choice among so many impressive cathedrals.
Siena’s
cathedral is known for its floor and its densely alternating horizontal bands
of light and dark marble on the columns.
The floor is composed of 56 marble panels depicting figures from
mythology and scenes from the Old Testament.
The floor panels are usually 60% covered but during the month of
September they are all uncovered for viewing.
Today was September 1!
Unfortunately we couldn’t take photos.
Walking along the Via di Citta, we stopped to buy some
wine.
I bought a bottle of Russo di
Montepulciano and a bottle of Brunello di Montalcino, the later being one of
the better Italian red wines.
We headed
back to the car by the Via Banchi di Sotto, Via di Beccheria and Via della
Galluzza, all pretty, scenic streets.
We
stopped to briefly look at the Basilica di San Domenico dedicated to St.
Catherine of
Siena
who received the Stigmata and experienced ‘ecstasies’ at her house nearby.
Back in San Gimignano we had dinner at another of Roberto’s
suggestions, restaurant Il Rifugio.
It
was not one of his better recommendations.
The food was okay but Rita’s veal was tough.
Her bruschetta was good and my starter of
crostini with several different spreads was okay.
I had ravioli stuffed with duck and with
truffles on top.
The bottle of Rosso de
Montepulciano was great.
I had
profiteroles, which looked as if they were rolled in chocolate pudding.
It was not as good as previous meals.
Sunday was much cooler after a front blew through but the
sky was clear and sunny.
By afternoon
the warmth was returning.
This day was
scheduled for the Chianti region.
This
is pretty countryside with rolling hills full of vineyards and occasional pine
forests at the top of the hills.
We
spent most of the day on little, curvy back roads and headed first to
Poggibonsi, to Barberino Val d’Elsa to the Abbey at Badia a Passignano.
The setting was super but the church was
having a service and the abbey was closed for reconstruction.
So we headed off on a road not clearly marked on our
maps.
It deteriorated into a gravel road
full of huge potholes but took us to a pretty town not on our maps either.
The town was Montefioralle and it was so
pretty we parked outside its walls and took a walk around the small town.
I guess the town’s main fault was that nobody
famous was born there and no bits of history happened there.
Fortunate for the town because it looks
unspoiled.
We drove into Greve in
Chianti and headed north to Strada in Chianti and Impruneta before turning
around and returning to Greve.
Here we
stopped and had a good lunch in the pretty Piazza Matteotti at the Caffe le
Logge.
I had good ravioli stuffed with
potatoes and covered with ragu sauce.
Rita
had penne with a pesto sauce.
The café
had several good wines by the glass so we had one glass of Ruffino Ducal
Riserva Oro and one glass of Ruffino Ducal Riserva, both very good Chianti
wines.
After lunch Rita bought herself a
handmade bowl and we found another ice cream shop.
We drove to Radda in Chianti and walked around this medieval
village then set out for Castellina in Chianti where we stopped again.
Castellina is known for its unusual street,
Via della Volte that is vaulted along almost its entire length.
It skirts the interior of the town walls and
in the past, riders could go right around the fortress on horseback.
Next we drove back to our B&B and read
our books for a while before dinner.
For dinner we went back to restaurant Da Pode, which we
enjoyed so much before.
I had plans for
ordering
Tuscany’s
most famous local dish, bistecca alla fiorentina or simply a grilled T-bone
steak.
We had seen it advertised
everywhere but saved it for today.
When
I went to order it, we found out that it was not for one person but for
two!
Rita was a good sport and said she
would split it with me.
It was
huge!
It was about two inches thick and,
unfortunately, not cooked very well.
I
can eat rare steak but Rita doesn’t like her steak rare.
But the steak was so large that we could both
cut off what parts we wanted and still be filled up with some to spare for the
dogs out back.
We had an excellent
Morellino di Scansano red wine to wash it down.
No wine was left for the dogs.
Monday, Labor Day, we took back roads and autostrada to the
town of
Lucca.
Lucca
is very old with much history.
It’s
mainly noted for the legend of the True Cross and the Holy Face (Volto Santo),
a crucifix that was supposed to have been washed up on the shores of Luni in the
8
th century.
We viewed this
cross, which is in the Duomo San Martino,
Lucca’s
11
th century cathedral.
Lucca is also known as
the town where Caesar, Pompey and Crassus met to form the First
Triumvirate.
We saw many churches such
as Santi Giovanni e Reparata and San Michele in Foro which stands where the old
Roman forum used to be located.
We
walked to the Guinigi house with its tree-topped tower.
I walked up the tower and took photos while
Rita rested.
From there we walked to the
Citta Vecchia or old town.
We had a
simple pasta lunch at a café in the Piazza dell’Anfiteatro, which used to be
the location of the Roman amphitheatre.
Again we found great ice cream, walked around the town some more and
along the ramparts back to the car park.
We drove back to San Gimignano and walked to the Piazza
della Cisterna where we had a beer at a sidewalk café.
Then we went to Trattoria Chiribiri for
dinner.
I don’t remember much of that
dinner except we shared an antipasto platter that had prosciutto and salamis of
wild boar.
I think we each had pasta of
some sort but it wasn’t memorable.
Rita’s fairly sure she had cannelloni.
Even the half-liter of red wine was lack luster.
We went back to our room and packed bags for
the return trip.
Tuesday we had an early breakfast, checked out and headed
back to
Pisa.
We made good time, turned in our rental car
and checked in at Ryan Air.
The flight
back was on time and we arrived in
Brussels
in a cold rain.
In fact, it’s been
raining ever since we returned.
But we
had a great time in
Tuscany
and won’t forget this trip soon.
