Krakow, Firenze, San Gimignano and Sienna

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Dear friends and family,

We have arrived back safely in Canada so I am completing the next couple blogs in hindsight. From Moscow, we flew back to Warsaw and had a couple restful days in Krakow (which is about 4 hours by train from Warsaw). In our brief stay, we saw the Main Market Square, Wawel Castle, Barbican, and Saint Mary's Basilica. We even found the mouth to the cave of the legendary dragon on Wawel Hill and saw it come out in front of us and breathe fire. We quickly escaped into the night!

The next day we flew to Rome from which we were to catch our cruise around the Eastern Mediterranean. We were able to have a couple days in Florence, San Gimignano and Siena before we headed out to sea. We stayed at a hotel near the Santa Maria Novella Church in Florence. We met up with a free walking tour to see the San Lorenzo Cathedral in the Medici Quarter but found the tour too confining, so we headed over to see the Piazza de San Gimignano and the famous Florence cathedral - Il Duomo. We continued to the Uffizi Gallery and decided that since the line was short (less than an hour), that we would have a look around this very afternoon. I remember waiting three hours on a previous trip. We saw The Birth of Venus, The Annunciation, and Rembrandt self-portraits. We also visited the copies of famous statues in the courtyard outside, including Michelangelo’s David, the Poseidon Fountain and Perseus with the Head of Medusa. We crossed over the Ponte Vecchio which is lined with goldsmiths and jewellery stores, and made our way up to the Pitti Palace and the Basilica di Santo Spirito, before finding a cheap good pasta dinner. We found it surprisingly difficult to find good food (or service) anywhere in Italy - be warned.

We joined up with a tour to visit San Gimignano. They dropped us in the parking lot below the village and we climbed the hill up in to town before the other tourists to get some photos of the quite streets before the horde descended. We climbed to the top of the Grosse Tower to get a 360 degree view of Tuscany, the other towers, the villas and chateaus and the town walls. There was a small section of the walls that we could walk to the top and imagine what the defenders would have felt like centuries ago. Ann mailed some postcards and I looked into the deep well that kept the town supplied with water during a siege. We managed not to be the last back to the bus for our trip to Sienna. During the first half hour we went out to the fortress and walked the walls to get a good view of the city. After a couple slices of pizza, we joined back with the tour to learn the history of the city and it's rivalry with Florence. We were walking around in the rain so could barely hear the guide but the old cobbled streets, small churches and town hall square spoke for themselves. In the shell-shaped main square, they still run a horse race twice a year, in the middle of town. The cathedral still lies half built due to a plague that cut short its building. It was planned to rival the great cathedral of Florence. It still has impressive mosaics and the ceiling of the library is unparalleled. We had one more bonus stop on the tour at the walled medieval castle of Monteriggioni. It only contained a handful of houses today but was still as similar to a medieval town as could be (minus the souvenir shops). The brief half hour stop allowed just enough time to look through the town and quickly circumnavigate the walls. This time we were the last ones to get on the bus but it was worth it. We had one last stop at a local winery that specialised in balsamic vinegar and truffle sniffing dogs, and then we were back to Florence. We also met Ken and Leah (celebrating their 50th anniversary) on the tour and got some good suggestions from them for our upcoming cruise. Another pasta dinner that evening and we were ready to go catch our ship.

For anyone travelling near Florence, we'd recommend adding a couple days as there is so much to see here as well as so many day trips available. If we had one more day we'd have been up to see the Cinque Terre and another day would have taken us to Pisa and beyond.

Cheers, Richard and Ann.

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Comments

[Oana]

We had trouble finding good food in Italy initially - but then downloaded a couple of iPhone apps published by ex-pat food bloggers. Using their recommendations, we found excellent cheap restaurants.