Florence, Cinque Terre, Lucca, San Gimignano, and Tuscany (Day 5-8)

FLORENCE

This by far will be the longest post, for we stayed the longest in Florence (4 days). We used it as our "hub" and visited cities close by Florence. Day 1 was walking around Florence and seeing the sights. On day 2 we traveled to Cinque Terre for a 13 hour long day tour of the five cities. On day 3, we traveled by ourselves to Pisa and Lucca. On Day 4, we spent the morning seeing Michelangelo's David and then had a guided tour to San Gimignano and a chianti wine tour near San Gimignano (in the Tuscany region). Florence was Danny's favorite place to visit. I did love all of the history and that most things were in walking distance. Florence was beautiful. We got an airBnB right next to the church (below) that has many of the Medici family buried there. The Medici family was beyond wealthy and commissioned many things that we saw in Florence. They are also recognized as playing a significant role in creating musical instruments and spreading the popularity of music. 

It was so hot...and I lucked out that they had "cold" coffee at our first restaurant in Florence! This is not usually a thing in Italy. One restaurant offered me a glass of ice to pour my coffee on. 

Eli had sea bass. I was impressed with his restaurant selections this entire trip. Evan wanted pizza at every restaurant (I don't blame him!), while Eli ate octopus, calamari, sea bass, pasta with shrimp, etc. He's my little seafood eater!

Embry love her leather coin purse that she purchased!

The duomo in Florence (Santa Maria del Fiore) was also very beautiful. I really enjoyed seeing all of the beautiful basilicas and duomos in every city. They were all so different and equally breathtaking! This one had pink and green all over it. I took a pic up close (farther down) to show a better idea of the coloring.

This dome is the largest brick dome in the world.

I loved the baby trucks.

While we didn't purchase gelato here, we loved the chocolate running down the wall!

This is the Piazza della Signoria square. The Uffizi gallery is right here too. We did not go to the art gallery, but it is known as one of the best in the world.

Beautiful art, history, and sculptures everywhere!

This church was called the Santa Croce. Supposedly Michelangelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli are all buried there.

This bridge from the Middle Ages is so cool (Ponte Vecchio)!

Street art and artists were everywhere.

We toured the Accademia Galleria (where the David is). 

It was neat to see some of the molds or pieces that were not quite finished by Michelangelo and other artists.

We went to the market that day, too.

A couple of ladies kept saying "bella" to Embry which means pretty.

For lunch, we had some delicious pasta!

Before our Tuscany tour, we went to the oldest gelato place in Florence. I even tried sesame gelato!

This is a fast forward to the evening when our tour driver took us to Michelangelo's hill where we could see some amazing views of Florence.

The artist that designed this hill in honor of Michelangelo also made a bronze replica of the David. It was being worked on while we were there.

 CINQUE TERRE

We were taken on a guided tour by bus to Cinque Terre. We went to all 5 towns and we were hot, hot, hot! We saw some beautiful places, but definitely came home sweaty and tired. There was a lot of consumption of cold drinks, gelato, fruit, and slushies! These pictures loaded backwards, so the end of the day is first. We took a boat in the evening to our last town. Danny and the boys even hiked between two of the towns. I was proud of them! In another town, we walked up almost 400 steps to get to the town. All of the towns were beautiful and each offered something a little different. One was known for gelato, another known for the beach and some special foods, and yet another was known as the place to taste wine, etc.

This roll had melty cheese inside. It was so good! We also tried this chocolate pie they were known for too...yum..and wasn't able to take a pic before it was in our bellies!

Embry and I hung out in this cave to cool off while the boys hiked towards us. We had cheated and taken the train.

Isn't it beautiful?! This is the famous one that a lot of puzzles are done after.

You can definitely tell they do a whole lot of photoshopping and brightening of the colors!!

PISA

On day three we took the train to Pisa (about an hour away). It was a long walk from the train station and so beautiful! I didn't expect to enjoy seeing the leaning tower so much, but I really did! We had fun doing iconic pics with it and being a little dorky. Danny has even more poses on his phone.

We definitely had to see Keith Haring's mural!

LUCCA

We then hopped on a train for 27 minutes to the town of Lucca. Lucca is one of the last towns to have its city walls still intact. We were told that cars aren't allowed inside these walls, but there definitely were cars! The city was really pretty and we had to quickly see what we could. We only had 2 hours to eat and explore (we had dropped off our clothes at a laundromat and had to pick them up before they closed). 

SAN GIMIGNANO

On the last day in Florence, we paid for a tour in Tuscany. Our driver first took us to the medieval town of San Gimignano which was so cool! I couldn't stop taking pictures. 

If you remember the Pinocchio story, it is written by an Italian author and in the story, Pinocchio was carved by Gepetto in a Tuscan town (Collodi). Therefore, we saw Pinocchio all over Florence and in the small towns.

TUSCANY WINERY TOUR

After leaving San Gimignano, our tour guide took us to a winery nearby where they talked about the grapes they produce and how they make the wine. They showed us the wine barrels and then gave us a delicious dinner with a wine tasting. Poor Danny and I are not wine drinkers, but we tried our best. The drive and the region of Tuscany was amazing and spectacular to look at. Most of my pics were through the car window and did not come out, but I tried. For now, the beautiful scenery will just have to stick inside of my head.

This is where they smash the grapes.

This winery that we drove by is really popular and super expensive for tourists. I liked how the building is barely visible.