Touring Tuscany

On Wednesday, June 15, we met a tour bus with Walkabout Florence at the Santa Maria Novella train station first thing in the morning. A group bus tour isn't typically my idea of a good time on vacation, but when we decided we didn't want to rent a car in Florence, I knew we needed to find a way to still see some of the surrounding Tuscan towns. Walkabout Florence is the top ranked tour on Tripadvisor and a blog I've read for years also highly recommended their "Florence in a Day" tour, so I felt good about our decision.

Our bus left Florence around 8:30 a.m. and as we left the city, our tour guide, Lavinia, began sharing information about the medieval and renaissance history of Florence and the surrounding towns of Tuscany. Our first stop was Siena, a town a little more than one hour south of Florence. The town is known for its historic horse race, Il Palio. As Lavinia explained to us, this horse race is no joke. The town is divided into 17 districts, and twice a year, 10 districts are chosen to participate in Il Palio. Horses are chosen at random and each district chooses its jockey. But it's the horse that is the hero. All horses enter the church on race day to receive a blessing from the priest. If the jockey falls off during the race, the horse can still win alone. And for the district that wins comes a year's worth of boastful celebrating. You belong to the district you were born in - you can marry across districts, but come race day, you return to the district of your birth. Like, you leave your children with caretakers in the district they were born in, and you go to your district. Hunger Games, you've got nothing on Il Palio.

Grabbing a snack of ricciarelli before hopping back on the bus. 

After Siena, we made our way to the town of San Gimignano, about 45 minutes northwest of Siena. Just outside of town we stopped for lunch at an organic farm that grows olive trees, vineyards and a special breed of cattle. Here, we stopped for a classic rustic lunch accompanied by the farm's wines. Olive oil and garlic bruschetta, penne con bolognese, mozzarella and prosciutto, and cantucci with vin santo for dessert. The beautiful view from our dining room was the quintessential Tuscan postcard view.

 My hair photobombed in a lot of photos. 

Full and sleepy after lunch, we completed the trek to San Gimignano. This walled city has just a few of its iconic medieval towers remaining. It's very picturesque, although with the other tour groups that seemed to flood the city, it felt like a medieval Disney World of sorts. I found myself wondering what the city would feel like at night when all the tourists went home.

From San Gimignano, it was a one and a half hour ride to our final stop, Pisa. All of us were a little sleepy by this point, so most of the ride was spent napping. I had visited Pisa on a previous trip, but it was still fun to go back and do the obligatory Leaning Tower of Pisa pictures with Jonathan. We also enjoyed a pick-me-up coffee before heading back to meet our group. Funny memory - we had been so timely the entire day, but in Pisa we pulled up the rear thanks to yours truly needing a potty break at the last minute. As we jogged up to the trolly train that was taking our group back to our bus parked at the edge of town, Lavinia jokingly yelled, "Come on, Bari, you're holding us up!" ;-)

Back in Florence at 8:30, we relaxed in our room a bit before grabbing a late night pizza and gelato (plus a shot of limoncello that the pizza cashier insisted we enjoy, his treat).

We would recommend the Walkabout Florence "Tuscany in a Day" tour for anyone staying in Florence who doesn't rent a car. It's a jam-packed day, but it offers a good taste of each town and maybe gives you ideas of where you'd like to return on a future trip.