Blogs from Tuscany, Italy, Europe - page 7

So my travels started with a wedding in Florence. First one i've been to and what better place than Florence to go. I spent the first 2 nights staying a street away from the Piazza Della Signoria, and just a couple of minutes walk from the Duomo. The remaining nights I stayed at the PLUS Hostel, which i'll write a bit about further down. The morning before the wedding was spent exploring the city. We walked to the Piazza Del Duomo, which was rather incredible. There wasn't a queue going in to the cathedral so we spent a little while inside. We had lunch in the Piazza Della Signoria. Here was the Tower of Palazzo Vecchio, used as the seat of the city's government and to protect them from attack. The tower itself it 95m high ... read more

Went to Pisa and climbed the tower today. Then went to Lucca and it started raining about 15 minuites after we got there and it was pretty hard so we did not see much. The train tickets are cheap so what the ... Still a long day with 3 hours on the train. At least it was sitting and not standing looking at paintings.... read more

The start of our trip from Minneapolis was shaky as we had a 1.5 hour delay while Delta replaced a control panel on the plane. It stopped working after we boarded so we sat on the plane for 1.5 hours before the start of an 8 hour flight. They made up about an hour of that so we arrived in Amsterdam only about 45 minutes late. Luckyfor us we had a 3.5 hour layover as the Amsterdam airport was crowded and busy at 6:30 AM. All of the shops were open and there were a lot of them. It also took over and hour to get through security. After that the flight in to the small (very small) airport in Florence was uneventful. A taxi ride into town and we were met by the couple that ... read more

Casa Verde 5 October Our intention was to head for Pisa one day and then to the Cinte Terra (I seriously question this spelling!)on another day but have decided that it is so beautiful here that we will stay and explore until we have to leave on Monday. Today we went into Bagna di Lucca, finished our shopping and then took Jane and the shopping home as poor thing she was not well. We left her to eat after lunch and headed to Gillicano to buy a GPS for use in the car. Maps, both electronic and paper, had served us this far but Ken felt more at ease with the GPS as he could see what was coming, very useful on a hillside of switchbacks! Mind you at one point the silly thing said to ... read more

Thursday, September 27, 2012 Up early again for our guided tour of Florence and Pisa. The drive to Florence took about 1 ½ hours. We stopped first at an overlook called Michelangelo’s Square. It offers a grand panoramic view of medieval Florence within the city walls. From there we drove through the city gates and began our walking tour by first crossing the Arno River on the Ponte Vecchio Bridge, originally built in 1333. The bridge you visit today was built in 1345 to replace the original that was destroyed during a flood. The shops that line this bridge are unique in design, and offer incredibly expensive jewelry and leather goods. After leaving the bridge we meandered through narrow streets (well, not exactly streets, but maybe alleys, bike lanes, pedestrian byways?) until we arrived first at ... read more

Firenze 3 - 4 October, Casa Verde Today we went to the Uffizi, an amazing place as those who have been will agree. Entry story first - we had not pre-booked tickets so stood in the queue for door entry, observed people with clipboards tickets and money belts, hmmm what could they be doing?turns out they were selling reserved tickets for almost double the price of the door tickets. Scalpers you may ask? It looked very official and was out in the open so we decided that it was kosher and as twas likely to save us an hour in the queue we paid the excess! As well as the sculptures and art works, the ceiling is to die for! I want one, or two! The history inherent in the artworks, ceilings included, is so interesting, ... read more