The Road to Tuscany

We've never been to Italy before.  So this was exciting.  Wasn't really sure what to expect except that it's Italy and it's loaded with history and art and winding roads with super expensive cars and great food and wine.

So it's probably a good bet that there's stuff to see and do.



Pics of Everything Tuscany
Pics of Schipol

The flight there was fine on KLM.  Uneventful and on schedule.
Get a SIM from TIM if you want to save some roaming dollars.  30€ for 15GB for 30days.  That's the tourist voucher deal.  It's pretty good.  We went the whole week and you basically cannot spend more than that and even in France when we were on our connection at Paris CDG we could use it.

Sounds like a coffee rewards card but it's for real.
It worked out really well for us.
Every place has wifi, so you just need to ask for the password.
Even the McDonald's there was really nice, macarons and espresso.

Pics of Chianti

I opted not to go to Pisa.  Instead I had a bike rental for a few days and rode around in Chianti region.  It was in the mid teens (deg C) and always seemed to rain after 1pm.  I got caught in it in south east part of the region.  I was lucky to find shelter under an awning by a soccer pitch and stayed there till that localized cloud cell passed and the blue skies emerged.  I tried to cut my route short by attempting to cut west after Greve, but I lost my bearings and rode north west and was on the way to Florence.

I kept retracing my route but every time i just seemed to not find the way back.  My battery was running low and tried to shut down apps and left only the nav one.  I ended up about 10km away
from the town of Tavarnelle when my phone finally died.  But that was okay.  After that it was familiar.  But it was wet the whole way home from where I was.

After looking back at my route,  i was actually close to finding my way.  But when you are new to the region and don't exactly know which way to turn.  I was stopping every so often just to get my bearings.  It was when I thought I knew where I was going that I got myself lost.

But it all worked out.  I was so happy to have made it home.  Eventhough I didn't get to record the last 25+km.  I was curious to know the final elevation.  It was hilly.  Not straight up hills, although there were many of those, but they were winding switch back hill climbs.  Very different from what we have here in Toronto/Ontario.   It was great.  some crazy long downhills too.  Glad the road was newish.  As I got a flat a few kms from the villa on the first day.  Second day was less than 1/2 the distance of the 1st day, but I didn't get lost.   Still a lot of climbing.  I felt it in my legs for a few days after.  It really helped me to know the region.  The highways are great, but you miss a lot.  The back country roads are where everything interesting is.

I got to see a lot.  Sightseeing by bike might be a bit of work, but worth it.


Pics of Pisa
The weather in Pisa was way better than the weather in Chianti.
They had sun and clear blue skies.
And lasagna and pizza.  Apparently these were really good.  Kieran ordered lasagna every where we ate.  Some he liked better than others.  The one in Florence was the best he said.

I had thunderclouds and dampness.
And leftovers, chips, cheezies, espresso and biscotti.

Pisa looked pretty nice.  You cannot drive right into the town of Pisa. You can drive to Lucca, park there for a few hours, I think it's only 2, and then take the train into Pisa.

The only other thing I wanted to do was visit one of the famous italian super car factories.
I was recommended to visit Lamborghini near the town of Modena in Bologna.
It's not cheap, but you get to walk the factory floor.  The tour guide is great.

And although you cannot bring a phone or camera on the factory tour, Kieran got a cool embossed Lamborghini logo on blue leather from one of the employees working on the upholstery section of the floor.  She saw that he was the youngest member of our group and gave him a special memento of the tour.  I bet the older gentlemen were jealous.  It was such a nice gesture.  Really made the visit special.

 Pics of Bologna

We were close to the city of Modena.  We are big fans of the Netflix show Chef's Table.  So we went to the 3-Michelin Star location of his restaurant (top 5 of the world's 50 best) Osteria Francescana.  We didn't go in.  As it didn't look like it was open.  Plus a stage of the Giro D'italia was coming through Modena as we saw the 6km, 5km, 3km to go banners along the road were were on heading towards Massimo's restaurant.  It was looking like it was about to become a zoo in Modena, to top it off we couldn't park.  The meter wouldn't take my credit card.  And I couldn't read the instructions.

The alleyways are really cool.  I could recall the scenes outside of the restaurant.

The area is mostly walking so alleys are mostly for small vehicles.

It was a little over 2hrs to Bologna from our villa.  So after lunch at a local restaurant for some lasagna


I rode on Wed too, but not so far.  As I was still a bit tired from Monday.  Plus I wanted to do something else too.   I did ride the long uphill climb on the rode of Via Borromeo to the town of San Casciano. That was a funny coincidence.

Pics of Barberino

So the plan was to shop.  The outlet at Barberino is beautiful.  Really easy to get to.  Getting back from there was an adventure.  I had somehow got confused on the exits and ended up making a few wrong turns and added another hour to our trip back to the villa.  We got back.  Eventually.

It's super nice.  Nothing like the outlets in US.
Some of the stores were similar, many others were only European brands.  So I just stuck to hitting those stores I knew I wouldn't find back home.



Pics of Florence
Whatever you do if you are in Florence.  Don't sit around, because these mimes will pounce on you for money.
We already got hit up for 7€ for a drug rehab thing.  I thought they only wanted signatures, they spring on you the donation thing when you are at the table.

I should have just walked away, but we felt the cause was good.
But this was totally unexpected.
I wasn't sure at first WTF was happening.  She kinda just scooped up my hand and then proceeded to put her cheek to the back of my hand and getting all the white makeup crap on me.  And then she was kissing the back of my hand.   I'm smiling there in the photo, but I was thinking "Oh Noooo! How do i get out of this."

Then when she let go of my hand to show me that she was expecting some money for the unwanted photo op that she gave us.  I mumbled "uh...no thanks"  and I channeled my inner Usain Bolt and bolted down the street like a cheetah on caffeine!
It's a good thing i stay in shape. All my training and running was good for something.  And good thing I wore my running shoes.  There was no way she was gonna catch me.

It wasn't too warm in Florence but I was tired from walking around.  Then another female beggar came up to me again.  That's when I took off.  Staying too long in one spot you get pounced on.

This was our last evening with all of us together.  As some were heading home on Friday.  And the rest on Saturday.

On Friday we visited Siena.  Coincidentally that's the name of the model of my bike.  Which I find odd because my bike is a US made bike manufacturer.  But they named many of their models after the region we were in.

Pics of Siena

On our way though, we stopped by this really cool looking vineyard that we had been seeing from the A3 (autostrade) on our day trips.  It's Antinori (4.5 stars out of 5).

So we checked it out and got to ride in the blacked out MB van to and from the parking lot to the building parking.  it was kinda cool.  very VIP-ish.

Siena was south of the villa by about 40kms.  It's not as busy as Florence and there aren't as many mimes around.
The streets wind up and down.  It was very pretty there.  The restaurant we found was categorized as 'home cooking'.  And glad we found it on Google Maps.  It was good.

This square is a lot like a big auditorium.  It was very neat.  Lots of restaurants around.   But as we found in Croatia, the closer you are to the attraction, the higher the price.

Saturday was our day to head home.
Gas up the car and figure out the directions back to the rental car place.
Cost for the rental was less than $350CAD.  From Expedia it starts at $100.  I thought it was per day, but that was for the whole week!  Then I got a bigger car and it was $115.  Then I added this optional insurance.  Then they asked if I wanted the peace of mind insurance option.  Which I declined.  I'm sure it as $115 CAD and not in Euros.  But what can you do.  We had to catch a flight.
I'm just glad we didn't have any incidents.

I'm glad we didn't have to do a Dukes of Hazard run before the gate closes when we left.  It was open the whole morning.

Pics of Petrola airport
Pics of Paris-CDG airport

A week is not enough.  But it's was a good taste of what Italy has to offer.  And we were only in 1 region.   But that was great.  Not having to drive 4-8hrs every day is so much better.

It's a very beautiful country with lovely people.  Friendly - Alessio and Simona (Chianti By Bike) were so helpful.  He lent me his cycling shoes the first day.  The day I got soaked for over 100kms.  They were dry by the time i returned them.  But then he got me cleats to use for the Look pedals.  So I got to wear my own shoes, in the dry (ha!).

Every direction you looked from the villa was amazing.  I'm glad I got a chance to ride around and experience it.