DAY 25 & 26

DAY 25 -
Time to visit the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We hadn't booked a tour for this as we decided we would choose the best day to go whilst we were in Florence. It's actually free to roam the grounds where the tower is, you only need to purchase tickets if you want to climb the tower or go into the

Pisa Cathedral & Bapstistry

cathedral. I have heard and read that the queue can be huge for the tower and you are not guaranteed of seeing it unless you have pre-booked a "jump the queue" ticket - usually this can only be done with a tour group anyway. So knowing that Toby is afraid of heights (yet he was the one that most wanted to climb to the top) we decided not to as there were warnings for people afraid of height.

We organised our own transport, bus to train station and then train to Pisa (plus return trip) and walked along the 1.6km pedestrian lanes to the tower. Upon first sight my reaction was "oh there it is, how cute!" as it was smaller than I expected, although still a tower next to a cathedral. Although I have read that the tower has been stabilised so it won't fall, it is still astounding how much it leans. After taking some photos, we find an eating place and toilet stop. Casually strolling back through the tower grounds and around Pisa cathedral, we headed back to Pisa station. I did notice that the queue for climbing the tower wasn't too long at all today, so if we had more time we probably could have done it (but I also know from experience, that Toby would have got half way up and then would want to come back down). All in all, it was a rather inexpensive day arranging transport ourselves and not going with a tour group.

DAY 26 -

Inside Florence Cathedral

Today we had something different in order and that was to visit a couple of wineries in the Tuscan region which is famous for their Chianti wines (a type of red wine). After exploring nearly every tour site of the area the night before, I managed to book a half day sunset Chianti tour for a reasonable price by 8.30pm.

View from first winery

After a leisurely morning, we strolled into the main areas of Florence for lunch, a quick look inside the Florence Cathedral (apart from the dome which had paintings, it was very plain) and then met up with the tour group at 2pm.  By this stage it was quite wet, but not to worry as we were mainly going to be under cover. Our group was small, about 15 people in all and the mini bus was very modern and comfortable inside as far as mini buses go. It was an hour to the first destination of travelling through hills and slightly winding roads but the scenery was lovely despite it raining. Grapevines, olive trees, snow on the mountains in the distant, cute villages - beautiful. The bus was quite bouncy and a bit warm and I was feeling quite "blah" in the tummy and knew that Toby must be too as he gets travel sick. Fortunately we reached the first winery, Toby feeling much better than I was.




Monteriggioni Fortress

We had an enjoyable time at the first winery, David our wine master had very good humour and even let the kids have a bit of a tasting with our consent. We also tasted local foods and condiments like salami, pecorino cheese, olive oil, truffle oil and balsamic vinegar - all yum! After the group had some time to purchase items from the shop, we hopped back on the bus to the second destination, racing around the hills and over speed humps (I think the bus driver must have had a drink or two whilst waiting or he is the Rome taxi driver's cousin). The next destination was the Monteriggioni fortress which we had time to explore first before the next wine tasting. There was no sunset today and it was dark early due to the rain which also impeded our exploration of the fortress. Most of the shops had shut too which was a little 

Inside fortress

disappointing. Our wine tasting occurred in the basement of one of the buildings which had been turned into a cute little shop selling wines and local produce.  Our tour finished and we hopped on the bus to be met with a different bus driver to take us back to Florence, thinking to ourselves that our tour guide had arranged for a different one whilst we were all having our tastings.


Cute little basement shop

Arriving back to Florence at 7.30pm, we finished our last night in the city having a light dinner at a restaurant, walking through lane ways of Florence back to our apartment, then packing for our next move tomorrow - Venice.