Florentine Steak

It's the most expensive steak I've ever eaten. About $65!  But it's enough for four people. The sides are roasted potatoes and grilled mushroom.

Tuscany Panoramas

A few panoramas of Tuscany. 

  

Siena Cathedral

Eating on the Road

Making sandwiches in the car...it's a lot cheaper to eat this way if a little inelegant. It also saves time so more photography can be accomplished. 

A Divine Plane?

A pretty cool shadow in the clouds of my A330.  I know the photo has poor quality but it was through my window. 

Almost Home

Sadly, the trip is coming to an end. Also sadly, a woman bumped her head on the seat in from of her and is requesting paramedics before we take off. Here's one of the two fire trucks that showed up. 

Back in Rome

Rental car returned, last dinner of the trip in Italy eaten (pizza!), and bags packed for morning trip to the airport. In a sort of bizarre coincidence, the apartment we're staying in tonight is in the exact same building as the one we stayed in last week. When you book it, you only know the general area. What are the chances that both bookings would happen to be different units of the same building?!

Road to Rome

Driving a combination of highways and tolled autostrada back to Rome. This is in Perugia just before turning south towards Rome.

Tuscany from Cortona

Looking northwest over the Tuscan countryside from Cortona.

Cortona

Cortona is a medieval hillside town on the border of Tuscany and Umbria. Far more recently, it also happens to be the setting for the "Under the Tuscan Sun" book and movie. We didn't have time to explore the city on our way back to Rome, but we did drive around it. And yes, we had sun again today!

 

Gassing Up!

We figured our little Fiat Panda averaged about 46 MPG. Not too bad! Most of my stick shift experience was driving a 1970 Chevrolet school bus, but I managed this ok. Only stalled it a couple of times through some pretty hilly driving. Biggest gripes about this car were the lack of armrests (you wouldn't think you'd need them until you don't have them) and the power window buttons on the center console rather than the doors. We had to look for them every time. 

Piazza del Campo Fountain

If this were Flash, that pigeon would be dispatched and eaten in about three seconds. Given its two teats, I believe that it is the wolf that, according to legend, rescued and nursed Romulus and Remus, the human babies abandoned on the Tiber River who grew up to found the city of Rome.

Another Siena sculpture of the wolf, this time with Romulus and Remus.

And one more...

Duomo de Siena

Siena's amazing cathedral. Made of Tuscan marble like Florence's, with as much (if not more) detail work on the exterior front.

Room with a View

The view of the Tuscan hills from our third floor room at Scacciapensiore.

Siena Piazza del Campo

Another Tuscan hill town, though really a city, is Siena. One of its famous sights is the large medieval brick square, Piazza del Campo, built in the shape of a shell.

Scacciapiensieri

Our beautiful hotel outside Siena.

Relaxing

We got an amazing last-minute deal at an excellent hotel in Siena: Villa Scacciapensieri. This is really a full-service bed-and-breakfast resort with very gracious staff offering anything you might need. What we needed at the end of today was to relax next to the fireplace in the large downstairs piano and sitting room. The staff brought over wine and snacks and lit the candles on the tabletops! A few other guests came and went while I've done blog posts! For anyone visiting the Tuscany region, we'd highly recommend the Villa Scacciapensieri - it's not right in central Siena, but tomorrow we plan to take one of two frequent buses a few minutes into the center of town.

Volterra Evening

We spent a half hour walking around the walls of the stone fortress at the top of Volterra looking for how to get up there. Medeival castle site, probably an amazing view, maybe a cafe to rest for a bit and enjoy the sunset. To no avail. How could it be so difficult to get up to what must be one of the best spots in town? Only to find out that it is very much a current and working state penitentiary! That would explain the No Pictures and No Trespassing signs!!

So instead, here's a view of a church and street elsewhere in Volterra:

 

Volterra

We arrived in Volterra pretty late. Most visitor-oriented activities were closing, but businesses for locals were still open, so we got fixins for dinner at the small De-Spar market.

Volterra:

De-Spar Supermarket...between these and the Coop Supermarkets, we've avoided spending $40 on every meal. Italy is as expensive as the rest of Europe.

Road to Volterra

After San Gimignano, the last stop of the day was Volterra, another medieval walled city a bit further west in Tuscany. And on Rick Steves' 'approved' list.

Agriturismo

Apparently a new thing in travel is to spend time on a working farm, perhaps doing some work, and eating fresh meals and participating in the entire farm-to-table process. These things are all over Tuscany. I could do that if I had a lot of leisure time, but with limited vacation, I think I'd get restless after about the first day. Anyone who has vacationed with me could vouch for that.

View from San Gimignano

Wonderful views of the surrounding countryside looking over the rooftops of San Gimignano.

San Gimignano

One of the Tuscan "hill towns," the medieval walled city of San Gimignano is famous for its towers, about a dozen of which still stand. These towers were built in cities around the region during the Middle Ages by families to show their wealth and offer them protection. When under siege, the families would retreat to the upper floors after burning the wooden staircases from the first floor, pulling up ladders behind them, making them unreachable by the pillagers. San Gimignano's downfall came when it lost a huge portion of its population to the Black Plague and it submitted to Florence. Now it is basically entirely a tourist town, for which Rick Steves snubs it, but we still found it an interesting afternoon visit.

Piazza Della Cisterna:

Towers from the top of San Gimignano:

Tuscan Countryside

Under the Tuscan Sun

Well, more like the Tuscan clouds, but rain is followed by some pretty spectacular scenery. The Tuscan countryside is somewhat like Napa, Sonoma, or San Luis Obispo counties, but it is dotted with centuries-old stone buildings.

Wine Tasting

Wine tasting in Tuscany isn't necessarily done at the winery. There are tasting rooms that have wines from all over, and you pay to sample wines, as well as olive oils and other local products. We stopped at such a place in Greve in Chianti.

Driving in the Rain

We headed out to a small Tuscan town, Greve in Chianti, in the area known of course for its Chianti wines. After some wine tasting there, we attempted to get to the medieval hill town of San Gimignano. Should've been less than an hour's drive, but it took us nearly three. Several roads were flooded over and closed, requiring us to backtrack and find our way around without the benefit of the GPS. Even then, the open roads were covered with water, mud, and debris, and rain poured down and lighting and thunder struck. [Devin's note: it is fun to listen to the Google GPS pronounce italian street names like a valley girl.]

The normally meandering Fiume Greve creek was overflowing its banks in places and flooded over several roads that we tried to take.

Rainy Day

Devin heads down to retrieve the car from the parking lot in the driving rain.

La Spezia

Large port city on the way to and from the Cinque Terre. We stopped here for a quick dinner before the 2.5 hour drive to Siena. Now in our hotel outside Siena watching and listening to an intense thunderstorm. Hopefully the rain lets up a bit for our touring through Tuscany, but at least we're in a car at this point.

Corniglia

The last town on our hike, and where we caught the train back to Riomaggiore.

Entering Corniglia, the trail was a paved path through vineyards.

Corniglia is actually up on the hill above the coast, while its train station is a ways south and down below at sea level.

Riomaggiore

The southernmost of the five towns on the Cinque Terre. We parked the car here, took the train to the northern end, hiked halfway back, and rode the train the rest of the way back south. (The southern half of the trail is currently closed.) It worked great.

Cinque Terre Hike

Stone bridge on trail:

At one point there was a hole in the fence along the trail; a man in a shack on the other side was selling homemade lemonade, limoncello, and wine. I got a lemonade, Devin a limoncello. We could've used a couple more such stops along the way! The others in the photo are random hikers; there was quite a bit of traffic, especially given the drizzling weather.

Don't look down! For a large part of the trail, it was a pretty steep drop straight down into the Mediterranean hundreds of feet below.

Nets strung between olive trees to catch falling olives for harvest.

There was a staffed ticket booth at the start and end of each trail segment. Tickets to hike the trail were €6 each.