We hired a car on the 6th of July and first thing Saturday took off on another road trip down to the south of Italy. We went straight to Florence in Tuscany, it took 5 hours or so on the main highway. When you read the Lonely Planet there seems to be so much to do in Florence that one couldn’t possibly see and do everything in a day. From historical buildings to art museums, designer boutiques and a buzzing cafe and restaurant scene, Florence has it all.
Riding Around Florence
We park the car at the main train station and hired bikes to ride around town. Most of the central old parts of the cities in Italy are only accessible by foot, so when there is so much to see and do, bicycles are the easiest way to get around. We stopped at the tourist information center and grabbed a map of the city, now we were ready.
First stop, Piazza Del Dummo, this is the city’s most famous landmark. From here we rode around taking photo’s and ticking off the ‘must sees’ from the guidebook. Another big attraction is the Uffizi Gallery which houses art from Michelangelo, da Vinci and the list goes on and on… and so does the artwork. The line up for museums and galleries on the weekend is a little silly; it takes hours to get in. So when someone came up and offered us tickets to jump the queue we paid the money and within 5 min we were inside. Score! This place is huge and we spent 2 hours here and that was rushed. But we wanted to have lunch and keep moving. We felt we saw a lot of Florence and yes it is possible to do it one day.
Chianti
After Florence we drove through Chianti (Tuscany). This is wine country where they have all the wonderful wines that you can sample as you cruise around from town to town. The drive was fantastic and when you get off the main road there is the never ending, picture-perfect landscapes of olive groves and vineyards. It’s just like you see in the movies. We stopped at a few wineries but were a little late to sample their food (which Tuscany is also famous for) however we had a couple drops of wine and canapes.
One place we stopped at was in Greve in Chianti. Here we found the BEST WINE CELLAR you have even seen ‘Le Cantine di Grevein Chianti’. They stock 1200 varieties of wine and guess what? You can try them all!! You buy a prepaid wine card costing $10 – $25 for two people. You walk around the cellar and there are wine dispensers where you select the wine you want to try, pop the card in and out trickles the wine from the tap. It costs 60c to $2 per glass of wine which is around 100 ml. What credit you don’t spend is refunded at the end of your visit. You can also stick the card in and buy antipasto platters from the bar. AWESOME! The town mascot is a black roster hence why I’m posing with a huge ‘I love cock’ sign in the photos.
Pisa
After Chianti we drove to Pisa to see the leaning Tower and made it just in time, held up the Tower and then crashed at a hotel. We stayed here for the night and then drove to Cinque Terre in the Italian Riviera the next day.