Under the Tuscan Sun

Tuesday 17th to Saturday 20th June 2014

After a two hour drive, we arrived in the medieval walled town of Lucca at midday, spent a few hours wandering inside the walls of the old town. A stroke of luck means we are in Lucca the same day as Sandy's sister Julie, who following our week in Paris together is doing a private small group tour of Tuscany, so we arranged to meet up at 4pm for a bike ride around the wall and dinner.

Under the Tuscan sun we certainly felt so it was gelato time before hiring bicycles for an hour to enjoy a ride around the old town walls which run for over 4kms and with fantastic views of the city inside the walls and in the distance to our other side, the Apuan Alps.

Lucca

The city is home to 90,000 and has a rich history dating back to ancient Roman times. Fortunately, as the city expanded and modernised, the walls around the old town remained intact and after they lost all military importance they became this wonderful pedestrian promenade shaded by big leafy trees that we were able to cycle. The defensive walls were designed by Leonardo Da Vinci and were never breached.

After a fun dinner hearing about Julie's tour and being made a fuss of by the young local waiter plying us with limoncello, we had to call it a night and say goodbye to Julie, but only until we get to meet up again briefly in Florence (on her birthday, how cool!).

We have spent more time in cathedrals during this last month than in our adult lives but we still chose to spend Wednesday morning enjoying the St Martin's Cathedral of Lucca (and the view from its belltower) plus its companions, the museum and archaeological complex. We thoroughly enjoyed all three. The archaeological complex has exposed where parts of the previous six buildings on the site were built. The most impressive being a baptistery from a previous church, some mosaics from Roman times and some rocks carved canals supplying water to public baths.

But it was time to move on, and we headed off to Pisa for what we considered the compulsory stop to see the Leaning Tower.  Wow, what an amazing building. It really exceeded expectations. It was truly beautiful to look at, totally aside from the bizarre vertical challenge of its lean, it is an exquisite, and for lack of a better word, "romantic" building.

Lucca's round piazza

Another hillside ancient walled town was calling though so an hour or so later, we found ourselves pounding the cobblestoned pavement of the lovely Volterra (in the Twilight series, the Volturi live and rarely leave the city of Volterra).  In many of these medieval towns there is a torture museum and we haven't visited any of them, but in Volterra, we did read a little about it after seeing one of the ancient cages hanging outside the museum. Revoltingly, they used to place people in these cages, and hang the cages, mostly in the town square (piazza) but sometimes also on town walls where the captives (for crimes often not serious) would slowly, and in front of the townsfolk, die of thirst and starvation, aided in summer by sunburn and heatstroke or in winter by hypothermia.

Not so far away is the equally beautiful hilltop medieval fortressed town of San Gimignano, our last stop for the day. San Gimignano is said to have one of the most iconic skylines in all of Italy. For that they may thank a grandiose game of one-upmanship played out by rival aristocratic families in the 12th and 13th centuries who built, wait for it, seventy-two towers around its fortressed walls. It must have been quite a sight back then, it still is now, even though just fourteen of the towers remain.

We headed off for our converted farmhouse accommodation in the heart of Chianti, called Salivolpi.

Lucca - note the tree growing out on the RHS roof tiles

Castinella in Chianti is within walking distance of our accommodation for the next three nights and is a gorgeous town in itself. It has a pedestrian-only centre set around the main piazza and of course a cathedral.

Having already enjoyed Lucca, Volterra and San Gimignano on our way there Wednesday, that left Thursday free for northern Chianti (Greve in Chianti and surrounds) and Friday for famous Sienna and its nearby towns of Montalcino, San Quirico and others.

Sienna had an escalator from the car park up to the city. We got there early before the tourist buses and had the town to ourselves for a while. It is famous for the horse race around the piazza that is held twice a year and runs for a week or so each time. Each district enters a horse and the bareback jockeys race around the piazza with heats etc. until one district wins. It is taken very seriously.

We decided to send some postcards home and then we queued up at the post office and bought 2 stamps at 2.5 euros each! so the total was nearly $A10 so back to emails and facebook.

Our camera has been a bit dodgy for a while and AR has had problems with the auto focus especially in cold weather on bushwalking trips in Tassie. Another Sony product that has been no good. So in Sienna we found a camera shop and purchased a new camera a Panasonic Lumix TZ35. It took a few trips as we would go and google the reviews etc. in between deciding which would be best. It has been a great choice and has a 20X zoom which is proving very handy.

The driving was pleasant, the roads mostly good and the countryside just lovely and dotted with town after hillside town.

Lucca

Late afternoon on Friday, as we arrived in San Quirico d'Orcia, we followed some signs to parking and as we were pulling up could hear such a roar of what could only be sporting spectators. There were shouts and cheers and those screeching hooters that fans use. We wondered what game could be on, or maybe a huge setup for the townsfolk to watch the World Cup on a big screen - but the timing seemed wrong for that.

Our car park was a short walk to what looked like walls of a stadium and where the noise was coming from so naturally that is the way we walked. When we arrived, a football (soccer) match was nearing completion. There was no visible scoreboard so we couldn't know the pending outcome but watched the final five minutes and enjoyed the atmosphere created by what turned out to be a small but terribly enthusiastic crowd.

AR had a tough Friday night (Sat morning) with the horses as the internet wouldn't work to the computer only to his phone so it took over 3 hours (2am-5am) to get our bets on and enter everything manually into our software.

Had to return the rental car in Florence by 1pm on Saturday.We managed to do so incident free after dropping our bags to the Florence hotel that will be our home for the next three nights. The driving went well with no major issues. The roads inland are much rougher and narrower than the first few days. Just about used to driving on the right so 3 weeks in Croatia should be no worries.

A story we forgot from our day trip to Portofino was 'Zona Disco'. The car park was almost empty and the majority of the spots were marked Zona Disco. We had no idea what that meant and there was no ticket machine so we parked there. A few hours later when we got back to the car it was much busier and all the cars had a large disc on their dashboards where they dial up the time they arrived so the 4 hour limit can be enforced. Since then we write our arrival time and put it on the dash like a Zona Serviette or similar. We have had no clashes with any officials on any account so far.

Julie and Sandy riding Lucca's 4+km wall

Lucca's wall - note the people on the wall it is very high and then there was a moat as well

Hymn books - the beginnings of music - 4 lines instead of 5 

Ancient baptistery found under the church floor

Ancient water system to feed the public baths found under the floor of the church

Ancient mosaics found under the floor of the church

It has a serious lean and is an impressive sight

Medieval punishment was to put people in these until they died

San Gimignano - 14 of the original 72 towers remain

Another town another wall

Our converted farmhouse - walking distance to town

Sculpture in Greve in Chianti

Greve in Chianti

The town piazza came to life while we were having lunch - it is market day

One stall had old bikes - fancy a 1954 model?

This dog was right by Sandy on his mat all during dinner but then the waiter bought a raw 1kg T-Bone to show the table to see if they wanted it and the dog was up in a flash

Escalator to Sienna

Waiter picking herbs for lunch

Very noisy football crowd