Florence - Sienna

  Siena, Tuscany, Italy
Monday, August 25, 2008

Week 5

My how the weeks go by quickly when one is away and having a great time! Here we are in Assisi on our way to Rome.
The last week has seen us take it easy a bit with spending some time here and there chilling out by the pools (yes, hard to take) at some of the places we have been staying. From La Spezia and the Cinque Terra we moved to Lucca, Pisa and Florence before heading to Perugia and to Assisi (of St Francis of Assisi fame). Unfortunately we did not make it to Venice this trip (yes, we'll just have to come back to Italy!). We had planned to go there, however as we started to wind our way south we decided to spend the time whilst we had the car doing the 'stop and stay' type of trip through Tuscany & the coast rather than zig-zagging over the countryside all the way to over to Venice and back again. Also, having a car in Venice is a pain to park. So, we have spent the time poking around the Ligurian Coast and Tuscan countryside which has been most enjoyable.

Leaning tower at Pisa

The photo here at Pisa turned out interesting so we put it in instead of the others we have of us standing in front of the tower (by the way, it really does lean a lot!).

Walled city of Lucca

The walled city of Lucca had some interesting things to see, and this decorated gateway into the city was one of them.

Bridge in Florence

Florence was amazing and here is a view of the bridges over the river. We saw all the big sights over our 3 days there including the Uffizi museum, Plazzo Pitti and the artwork of Dante, Leonardo, Bellini, Raphael, Giotto and of course, Michelangelo. From Florence, it was on to Sienna via San Gimignano which was just lovely.

Gimignano Town Square

This tiny medieval village is perched on the hillside overlooking the Tuscan landscape where we saw these frescos on an outside wall and the view from the tower shows the village and the tiny streets.

Gimignano and Tuscan landscape

Sienna was the next stop where the town square that you can see hosts a huge horse race which we (luckily) missed a couple of days before we were there. They load tonnes of sand into the square and thousands of people come from everywhere to watch the race. The horses race around the outside part of the square with all the spectators in the middle and at the edges.

Sienna town square

You can see some of the scaffolding from the spectator stands being dismantled. The cathedral at Sienna had a highly decorated library and this photo gives some idea of the beautiful frescos on the wall and ceiling - amazing!

Cathedral at Sienna

Also in Sienna we saw this lady looking out the window!
The Tuscan food and landscapes have been fabulous and tomorrow we are off to our 13 Century villa at Assisi.

Sienna Lady in window