On our trip to Tuscany, we tried to visit the most important cities of the area: Florence (in this post), Siena, Pisa & Lucca
SIENA
Siena is really beautiful and has lots of charm. It was even declared a world heritage site by Unesco. It has a lot of hills, so be prepared to walk, not an easy town with a stroller.
Nice detail: The opening scene of the James Bond movie 'Quantum of Solace' was filmed here during the Palio Horse Race, a 600 year old tradition,held on the Piazza del Campo, the main feature of Siena.
Lonely Planet describes this plaza as an urban carpet, a fitting description, as everybody sits on the ground.
funny fact: when we were ending our visit to Siena, a giant storm broke out. Gallons of water poured down over the city, so we had to find shelter for more than 45min. While we were hiding from the rain,with all the other visitors of Siena, groups of boys started running over the plaza wearing nothing but white soaked boxers, all the people hiding with us all over the plaza were cheering them on, so it ended up to be a funny moment after all! In the end, we had to run to the car anyway, the 3 of us looked like soaked water rats.
PISA
We did not expect much of the site of the leaning tower of Pisa, but all of a sudden while we were walking it was in front of us, and the whole site was impressive. Glad we made the trip to see it.
The funniest thing was seeing all this people posing for pictures pretending to hold the leaning tower.
We did not. We are not that kind of tourists, duuuh! :)
LUCCA
Lucca is a little town, some 20 km from Pisa and it is a labyrinth of little streets filled with nice shops, restaurants and coffee bars. The rectangular grid of its historical centre preserves the Roman street plan. The walls around the city are still intact, which gives the city an extra something. I particularly liked the Piazza dell'Anfiteatro.
No comments