Friday morning finds us in line with many other tourists to see the magnificent Duomo of Florence. After a look around and under (ruins from an earlier church) the cathedral, we go around back to take in the Duomo Museum - a collection of treasures from the church, statuary and drawings and models for the building of the Duomo. On the streets again, we settled in for some good pizza - each one had one! After a short break at La Contessina, we hopped a bus for a 20 minute ride to the village of Fiesole which sits above Florence. The main reason to go is to climb to the viewing point to look at the city down below and then to continue the uphill trek to St. Francis Church, so that's what we did. Fiesole has been around longer than Florence (a Roman outpost at first). Etruscans had lived in Fiesole since way back in the BC times, but when Rome decided it wanted the city, it got it - there are still Roman ruins in town. Our day was capped off by a bit of vino in the courtyard before retiring for the evening. More later!
I HAVE SET UP A NEW PHOTOBLOG SITE FOR THE 2014 TOURS. YOU CAN STILL SEE PHOTOS FROM 2008 TO 2013 HERE. TO VIEW THE LATEST TOURS GO TO: WWW.INTUSCANYWITHPATRIZIA.BLOGSPOT.COM
Ah, Arezzo - Molto Bello! Ah, Arezzo - Very Beautiful!
Thursday - Today started out with a first-time breakfast for our newcomers followed by a walk through the market and around town a bit. Then it was time for catching up on rest from jet-lag and "bike-lag" as well as getting some laundry done. I had been reading about the old, old, town of Arezzo and made a spur of the moment decision to take the train over to check it out. Well . . . move over Siena and Lucca! This may be my next favorite (to Florence) Italian city . . . so far! It was wonderful as you will see in the photos (I took 108, but I've spared you and have posted only a few!). After almost five hours of walking around Arezzo, I boarded the 8 p.m. train for the 45 minute trip back to Florence. A great day! More later!