Blogs from San Gimignano, Tuscany, Italy, Europe - page 4

Hi everybody! Greetings to all the travellers around the world! Are you planning your next travel and dreaming of a couple of destinations you can't miss in the future? That's it! It happens... Looking at the future, without forgetting the past. Your travelling experience is with you, guiding your choices, reminding you of your past vacation, trying to avoid mistakes, sharing contacts, pictures, impressions... Let's start with my last year's holiday "Under the Tuscan Sun".... Great! I should go back to Tuscany (but not this year, maybe next year.... ) My wife and I, we spent a week in the area of San Gimignano, a medieval hilltop town (in the picture). We rent a villa with breathtaking views of gorgeous coutryside with vineyards and olivegroves. A private villa is a perfect base to explore the area ... read more

It was a perfect day in Tuscany…all though I’m not sure I thought it would be at the beginning. We awoke to clouds and eventually rain…the kind of steady, soaking rain that a person knows we sometimes need, but not on your vacation. We asked for a recommendation of something to do that was not too far away and the ladies at the front desk suggested a village pretty close that had a castle. So, off we go with Dennis at the helm and “Bella” navigating the way. We found the town, but the castle was closed and apparently so was tourism for this year. We tried to get some help from a very unpleasant little man, to no avail, and then left. It was pouring rain anyway, so it was not very much fun. We ... read more

Today was a great day!! We decided to have a “take it easy day” at the hotel and shopping in San Gimignano. We had breakfast, dumped photos from the camera, read books out in the yard, had a leisurely lunch and just relaxed. It was a beautiful, sunny day and we enjoyed just taking it easy. Around 4 pm, we drove to San Gimignano, did some shopping, took some photos, and had dinner. The food was probably the worst we’ve had since we have been in Italy, but it was ok. Life is good in Tuscany!! ... read more

What a day today has been!! We began with a sleep-in day in Rome. We then got dressed, had a leisurely breakfast, packed our things, and checked out of the Hilton Cavalieri. What a beautiful hotel!! We got a taxi to the train station, arriving almost 2 hours before our train departed. The train station was lovely, but we did not really know what we were doing. Fortunately, we found some English speaking ladies with experience and finally the Information kiosk. We boarded our train for Florence at 1:20…our scheduled time was 1:15, so we thought this was really good!! The trip to Florence was seamless. This was good news because then the adventure began. First we had to find the Hertz rental car place. The person at the Info booth in the Florence terminal gave ... read more

I’ll admit it. I was getting tired of travelling. I was still loving Italy, loving everything we were seeing and doing, but walking into the luxury hotel at San Giminano, enjoying their buffet breakfast, knowing that the town was so small we didn’t have to rush to anything - it made me realize I was kind of tired of roughing it, and kind of tired of sightseeing, and kind of tired of the pace travel requires no matter how slow you take it. That, and we had received the official word that our house had closed and everything went smoothly, and Sam’s mom was minding the shop. All of it kind of made me a little homesick. But we had more to see, and as tempted as I was to sit on our gorgeous balcony all ... read more