Under the Tuscan Sun

For the most part we don't buy tours. If it's Tuesday it must be Belgium is not our cup of tea. We usually prefer to explore, get the feel of the place, the people, the culture by walking around on our on, living the cafe life and seeing the sights that either are very important to us or those we are able to visit without too much hassle. Traveling to another city alone is an education and an adventure/exploration so for the most part (and thanks to guidebooks and the Internet) we don't feel the need to join a group and follow the umbrella yielding guide to tell you about stuff as you bypass other stuff. What we usually do is take a day trip here or there, usually on the train, from whatever major city we are staying at. Florence affords a good number of day trips, Siena, Bologna, Cinque Terre, Pisa....But lo and behold, while researching our options we found this funky little tour! And no matter how much we kept looking at other options, we just kept giggling and going back. So we booked our first tour!

A car picked us up at our B & B and drove us to the train station, which was chaotic at best. There were a couple of groups because there were two tours meeting there. We piled into two vans and drove out of Florence for about an hour into Siena to the very industrial looking garage where we picked up our vintage 1960's Fiat.

I We chose the orange one! and everyone wondered if Frank would fit in it. Yes he did.

Driving was a whole other story since the gas pedal was size of a postage stamp and the gears were a bit .....shall I say, archaic. But off we went with our convoy of 6 including the tour guide, Stefano.

I will finally be going to Tuscany! We drive into the Siena province and right smack into Chianti and stop for a rest (after all that crazy driving) at Castellina in Chianti, the picture perfect Tuscan town.

After 45 minutes and the purchase of a lovely linen tablecloth we move on. Next stop,

Poggio Amorelli vineyard, a family owned organic vineyard where after a great tour of the cellars,

we will be having lunch in the terrace along with the Vespa tour.

Lunch includes a wine tasting where they open six bottles including a marvelous super Tuscan of which they only have four bottles left. We feel special. After lunch we walk along the very ready for harvest grapes,

and admire the beautiful Tuscan countryside

from our tiny little car.

And then we go,

Four our last night in beautiful Florence,

and our first ever, really awesome tour.

L'arte di Firenze - due

Uffizzi is Florence's largest and most important museum. Although there seems to be art everywhere,

in all manner imaginable, and some in the most improbable places. We did not get tickets to the Uffizzi from the US. A couple we met in line at L'Accademia told us they had gone the day before at 3:00-3:30 and only waited five minutes. We decided to try our luck this way. On the day we chose the lines were long and the waiting was over an hour, we were tired from doing something we never ever ever do on vacation. We had spent the entire day shopping. Florence has a magnificent array of stores, ranging from every high end designer to artisanal paper products and a dream of a shop devoted almost entirely to Pinocchio. Standing in line for an hour at 3:00 PM to get into a very large museum that closes at 5:30 PM didn't sound like the most appetizing thing to do. So we skipped the line, literally. Instead we opted to cross Ponte Vecchio the next morning and visit the not as popular yet extremely elegant Palazzo Pitti.

The permanent collection is exquisite,

and had me staring endlessly at this stunning piece, "Primo Compleanno" by Plinio Nomellini. An artist I had never heard of. His way of painting the light was so amazing that as you stare in awe at this rather large piece there is a glare that makes you cover your eyes...and it's in the painting!

The featured exhibit though was Lagerfeld fashion photography. He has never been my favorite but this was stunning.

And of course, being that this is Italy there's the "food" art...

Culture overload....

....no such thing...vintage Emilio Pucci!!!!!!

L'arte di Firenze - uno

When I was a kid and my aunt went on her 3 month whirlwind tour of Europe she returned with a book on every museum she had visited. She brought three solely on the David. I became obsessed. I pored over these pages with the closeups of all the different parts of that most perfect of statues. The curls in his beautiful hair, his perfect not quite aquiline nose, beautiful full lips, his too large hand with every vein and knuckle carved so perfectly human. The fingernails, his feet, his toes, the perfect body and tilt. The look in his eyes. How could a mere human (although Michelangelo doesn't fall into the mere category) carve something so magnificent with a hammer and chisel out of a big giant slab of marble? Regardless of everything else he did, this was his grand masterpiece! (And if you'd like to find out more you can find out here in this brilliant piece recently in the New York Times Magazine). So with all of the art that there is in Florence, and there's a LOT, if there was one piece I had to see was the David. In person, as close as I could possibly get without the alarms going off. Before we left for Italy we bought "skip the line tickets" for our first morning there for "Accademia dell'arte" where the David resides. This allowed us entry one hour before opening and the tour crowds with their umbrella yielding guides. We were to meet our tour operator in front of the "reserved" entrance at 10:00 AM to get our tickets. We walked over, a ten minute walk, (why is everything in Italy a ten minute walk? I could live with that!) found the woman in the yellow vest got our tickets and were told to go to the end of the line to the right, this was the "skip the line" line. Huh?

The line against the wall is the regular line, we're in the middle of the street and believe me I monitored our progress as to who got in first! It took 45 minutes and we did! Breezed through security (that was part of our exorbitant ticket price) and walked in. Where is he?????? He is not in the main room when you walk in, we looked at each other, FIND HIM, NOW!!!!! We moved into the room on our left and suddenly, in the distance, standing on a pedestal (well-deserved) with a skylight above him bringing in the natural light stands pure perfection.

There are few people around him, other reserved entry holders, and I'm able to get close,

and walk around and stare in complete awe of this phenomenal piece of work. And up close I can see all that detail I had obsessed over in those beautiful books and he's absolutely gorgeous! I walked around and around, luckily was allowed to take pictures. (Because of phones they've changed this rule, you couldn't before, NO FLASH, NO SELFIE STICKS). I sat here there and everywhere and just stared. I don't remember how long but I finally tore myself away,

after all there are other works in this museum! Mostly religious and other unfinished Michelangelo works,

which pale in comparison, but they are unfinished. There's also a beautiful section on musical instruments in this very small and intimate museum. Hard to concentrate on anything else though so we're finished with art for today.

We'll just traverse through the nooks and crannies....

...and enjoy the great work of art that Florence is.