BC Tour de France: Tuscany

Any vision of Tuscany, I have ever had, included rolling hills, vineyards, rustic villas, olive groves and medieval towns on top of mountains. Well, I was right.

We stayed at the Villa Vigmaggio, hotel, vineyard, olive grove, the place where Mona Lisa grew up and the Movie “Much a do about Nothing” was filmed. It was great!! Each of our mornings was spent site seeing in a nearby town followed by hours by the pool, playing tennis or tasting some of the establishment's lovely Chianti. The location was perfect for us. It was our idyllic country break from the city, but within a 45min drive from Florence, Siena, and San Gimignano.

Our pool with a view

A feature of each of our eight days in Tuscany included amazing drives up and down, through the winding, steep roads of the Tuscan hills. The roads themselves were full of cyclists, all geared up in bright colors, with an occasional fat guy in an undershirt. We saw at least 100 each day, the majority who appeared to be over fifty years old. How they endured the 100 degree heat doing this excrutiating exercise, is beyond me.

San Gimignano
The beautiful small medieval town of San Gimignano was a lovely stop for a morning walk and lunch. We toured the rustic streets, listened to street peformance and like the rest of the tourists hopped from one side of the street to other, to catch some shade. The great thing about medieval towns is that high density and narrow streets = lots of shade, cause it was hot!!!!

Rupert in San Gimingnano, with his daily fix of gelato.

Florence
Since Florence was less than a half hour away from our villa, we spent two of our days visiting the grand cathedrals, Palazzos, admiring the numerous statues (including Michealango's David), walking the back streets and eating gelato. Our first trip was on a public holiday so the streets we dead. "Wow" we thought, we can take this opportunity and actually drive around Florence on completely empty streets. Little did we know there was more than one reason the streets of Florence were void of vehicles. Entrance to the city centre in a car requires a permit which is enforced by cameras. Each time a car passes the perimeter the car is fined a 100 Euros. We have no idea how many times we wove in and out of the perimetre, we are still waiting for the bill from the car rental co - OUCH!