Advertisement
Published: June 16th 2007
Edit Blog Post
June 12, on our last day in Tuscany, we took a tour of the property where we were staying, San Fabiano. Filipio, the owner of the farmstay, and his son David gave us a tour. We walked through the forest and to the top of the hill where we had a view of the castle on the property. We also overlooked fields of fava beans, sunflowers (yet to bloom), corn and a grape vineyard. It was a beatiful view! We walked down to the castle, where Filipio's father lived. The castle was built around 870. What a job to maintain!!! We ended our tour at a bar in Monteroni d'Arbia where we all had a cappucino. A great way to end our stay in Tuscany.
After lunch and saying our good byes, we headed to Florence, about an hour drive north. We drove into the city center of Florence looking for our hotel, Hotel Ferdinando II de Medici. We got caught in the tourist crowds walking down the streets but eventually found the hotel. It was located in the central part of Florence near all the tourist attractions, right next to the home of Dante. Our friends from Australia,
the Smith family (who now live in London) stayed at this hotel in April and had recommended it to us. It was great to be so close to everything (and we were able to get just 1 room for all five of us, which is hard to find). Ramsis turned in the car at Avis as we were so close to everything and had no need for it.
June 13-14 we spent seeing the sights of Florence. Florence is the cradle of the Renaissance and a city like no other. It has an incredible wealth of world-class art and architecture, along with a rich history and culture. Dante, Michelangelo, Botticelli and da Vinci are just some of the big names who once lived and worked here and their influence is seen all over the city. Unfortunately for us, Florence is visited by tourist from all over the globe so it was a bit crowded. We did a few of the popular tourist attractions and then slipped away to the less popular ones, and enjoyed them just as much. On our first day we visited the Duomo (the world's fourth largest cathedral) and climbed the 414 steps to the top
Street musicians of Florence
These guys were awesome and they were right below our hotel room! of the Campanile (bell tower) for a bird's eye view of Florence. By the time we decended the tower, there was a long line to get into the interior of the cathedral. We decided to wait until the end of the day and instead headed for the Ponte Vecchio(old bridge) which dates from 972. The bridge is covered with jewellery shops, their trade passed down from generation to generation, since the 16th century. We crossed over the Arno River to walk down to the Palazzo Pitti. After seeing another long line we decided to go to the The Museum of the History of Science. It proved to be a nice change of pace from all the statues and churches, with Galileo's telescopes and old maps, and a bizarre collection of plastic cutaway models of various stages of childbirth. All quite interesting! Later in the day we made our way back to the Cathedral at the Duomo and were able to walk right in and see the inside of this amazing church, with many frescoes and statues.
On our last day in Florence we went to the Museo Archeologico. No lines and the kids stayed interested, especially when we reached
the Egyptian mummies! Unfortunately we were unable to get tickets to the Uffizi Gallery, which houses the world's greatest collection of Italian and Floretine art, but I'm sure the kids wouldn't have appreciated it anyway. We saw one of the copies of Micheangelo's David in a plaza, the orginal in the Galleria dell'Accademia. We spent the rest of the afternoon in a public park, the kids are definitely tired of all the museums.
On Friday, June 15, we took a bus from Florence to the airport in Pisa. We felt like we really got to experience a lot of different parts of Italy and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm sure we tried every flavor of gelatti and ate enough pasta to run a few marathons!! We took a short (2 hour flight) from Pisa to London and were greeted by our Australian friend, Karen McKeering Smith. We will stay with Karen and her husband, Russell, and their 3 kids Joshua, Xavier, and Lachlan, for 5 days. They moved here from Brisbane in January and live in a lovely suburb southeast of London called Sevenoaks. The weather is much like Seattle (cool and damp!) and we are beginning to feel like
Piazza della Signoria 1
This Piazza resembles an outdoor sculpture gallery with numerous artists represented. we are getting closer to home. We are all well and happy, especially now that we are with friends again!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.115s; Tpl: 0.039s; cc: 16; qc: 53; dbt: 0.0499s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Cassidy
non-member comment
Its sounds really exciting traveling over the world. Was Rome beautiful/ I'm sure it was. We all really miss Guys. cassy.