Italy 2011- Tuscany

We took a day tour in to Tuscany. This was an awesome excursion.
The bus was driven by one of the Mafia's hit men..he was straight out of the Soprano's but in real life..it was accentuated by the fact that he was on the cell phone the ENTIRE trip. You know cell phone talking bus drivers wouldn't last a minute here..but his phone rang constantly and he was on it 95% of the time while driving along small back roads in a huge double door bus. He had skills and we weren't going to question his driving abilities for fear of sleeping with the fishes. I casually snapped a shot of the landscape and 'accidentally' got him in the rear view..oops. ;-)
But we did make it through the day and he smiled at us..even though he was missing many of his teeth.....
anyway..first stop Pisa!
Known for..well..the only thing there really..this is the entire town of PisaThis is surrounded by medieval walls (we have left the Renaissance of Florence and moved to Medieval areas)The Duomo is spectacular..every figure is different and this place was massive!And the main attractionAnd we ARE tourists..and EVERYONE else was doing it.............

So we leave Pisa and head to a winery and olive farm in San Gimignano which is a region of Tuscany near Chianti. the winery is called Sovestro in Poggio which means 'something' on the hill. it was very small and luckily so was our tour group. They gave us a great home cooked lunch and did a wine tasting and olive oil tasting. We did buy quite a bit of wine and olive oil from this farm.And it was gorgeous..Tuscany is the place I want to return to visit..and of course it was the ONE day it rained. But you get the idea nonetheless.

Then we went to the town of San Gimignano which was very small and medieval. The doors were huge and had massive iron gargoyle knockers. they had a great shop with a lady sewing leather products right there..bought a few items from her. There was also a great overlook of Tuscany.
the last stop of the day was Siena..I also would like to return to explore this little town. Of course, the sun comes out now..better late than never! there is large piazza where they actually still run horses races every year. And of course, the church..this one was probably the most extravagant and over the top of all the churches we saw.This inside was just as marvelous.
That was a big day. I had thought this might be my last blog post..but I think I will save my Florence photos for another post. I got some great night photos, I think. Thank you for sticking with me..I hope you are enjoying my vacation recap!
so again..and for the final time.. To be continued......