Under the Tuscan FUN

Ciao!

So About our three days with the car in Tuscany...good times as usual. This is getting hard to take.

We picked up the car in La Spezia outside the Cinque Terre, did a load of laundry and a blog post (The tour one) and headed for the nearest back road to Pisa. The tower's cool. I guess we're getting pretty touristy; it does't get any more so then this:

Lucky I was there with my beohemouth muscles--that tower was falling down! Got a little pressed for time after Pisa having spent an hour in a local gas bar watching the TdeF's final time trial--Carlos Sastre held on to the yellow jersey, nice!

So we ended up staying in a town called Cecina, the hotel wasn't much but the meal, as you'd imagine was amazing. Nothing too elaborate as those how know me know that a gourmand, I'm not. Great salad, pizza and Chanti Classico. Yum yum.

So the next day it was off to put more miles on the back roads. We headed first for medievil towns of Volterra

and San Gimignano(this definitely warranted a stop in--a day without gelato is like a day in someplace other than Italy...), and settling for the night at a great 'casa' in Siena. This was a big find at 70€ a night. Having settled in we spent the evening exploring Siena, home of Il Palio (crazy one-lap around Il Campo Square horse race held in July and August - unfortunately not now though). So here's a pick of Il Campo:

So the deal with Il Palio, is that there are 17 sectors of Siena and each year they all compete to enter a horse in the race. Upon coming out of our risotrante that evening we were lucky enough to see one of these sectors celebrating their way of life. Press play.

Before shutting down the lengthy post, I should put two specific call-outs.

First, Mom and Dad, you MUST get over here soon and rent a bike and get out on these Tuscan Roads. They're exactly what you imagine them to be, and if you like the turns between Riverport and Bridgewater, wait til you get over here!

Second, here you go Gina, a sneak peak at a Florence shot--two thumbs and innumeral Davids ;)

Thanks for reading, and tune in soon for the news from Florence. Again, we have some big plans for tonight, so, ya'll come back now, here?

S & S