After spending three days in Rome, we packed up and took the train to Florence. The big tour there was by bus and was an eleven hour trip outside of the city, visiting the Tuscany region. Antonietta was our tour guide, a warm, friendly, multilingual young woman who took care of the English-speaking tourists as well as the Spanish speakers.
Our bus took us to the medieval walled town of Monteriggio, not too far from Florence. This small town was built by the Sienese in the early 13th century, and was fortified to defend against Florence at that time. Now it's a quaint little tourist stop with lots of photo opportunities. There were residences within the town, along with restaurants and shops.
Our next stop was Sienna, one of Italy's most visited cities, a place designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. We toured the cathedral with Antonetta, learned about the Paglio, the annual horse race around the plaza, and enjoyed our free time taking pictures, people watching, and having lunch. The whole town is adorned with large iron rings on the walls, outside of entryways. I asked Antonietta about these, and she explained that they were there for when horses were the main form of transportation. This "horse parking" device reminded me of the remaining, smaller sidewalk rings around my home town of Portland, Oregon. These large rings, however, had been here for hundreds of years, and over time had worn circular grooves into the stone walls behind them.
Another walled town, San Gimignano, is a place known as The Town of Fine Towers (it's also dubbed the Renaissance Manhattan due to its remaining towers.) The families living there many years ago built towers to defend themselves against other families and at one time there were 72 towers in all. Each family would try to outdo the others with the height of the towers, until there was a law limiting their height. The remaining few towers still create an impressive skyline against the Tuscan backdrop.
The final stop on the tour was wine tasting at a small hotel called Guardastella (Star View in Italian). We enjoyed some wine and appetizers, then stepped outside to snap pictures. I soon realized that one couldn't take a bad picture from anywhere here. The views from this hilltop were incredible. (We took the photo used in the header of this Italian Adventure series as well; it's one that I really like.)
We took tours within Florence later in our stay there. Maria wasn't able to make the Florence walking tour as she still didn't feel up to a lot of walking. This tour took me to the Accademia museum where I saw an unfinished sculpture by Michelangelo, along with his masterpiece, the David. We also toured the Duomo, the famous cathedral. Later in the day, Maria and I took the tour of the Uffizi Gallery and saw more incredible artwork and learned more about the history of Florence.