TRAVEL GUIDE Siena, San Gimignano & Pisa
Florence is the capital of the Tuscany region, so the city has no shortage of rolling hills in it’s backdrop. This means you can escape the city and be sipping a nice glass of red on a vineyard in about 30 minutes or less!
The ONLY guided excursion we booked on our entire trip was “The Best of Tuscany” tour, which would take us to Siena, Chianti, San Gimignano & Pisa all in one day. We typically like to explore at our own place, but this trip was so well put together and made it easy to pack in a few awesome cities into one day.
Siena
We started our morning by visiting the medieval town of Siena. The coolest thing about Siena is that the city is divided into 17 “districts”, each with their own animal/symbol and long history. You are basically born into a district and display patriotism to your district throughout your life, even if you marry someone from another district! It’s all very Hunger Game-esque but just one of the things that make this town SO unique.
Chianti Vineyard
Next, it was off to Chianti for lunch and wine tasting at Fattoria Poggio Alloro, an organic farm and vineyard. We enjoyed a “typical” Tuscan meal of bolognese pasta and participated in a wine and olive oil tasting which was the highlight of the tour, in my opinion! Before departing for our next city, we also got the grand tour of farm & vineyard! We were able to get a peek at the wine making process once the grapes are harvested and it was truly a “farm to table” experience I’ll never forget!
San Gimignano
After that we took off for another medieval town, San Gimignano (or “San Gi” as the locals call it). Here we got to explore the town at our own pace and indulge in gelato at Dondoli –which was voted the #1 gelateria in the WORLD!
Pisa
Our final stop was in Pisa to view the leaning tower and of course, take a few cliche photos! Pisa is also the home of Galileo and it was surreal to see the tower where he would spend his nights, peering through his telescope!
If you’re visiting Florence, I would highly recommend working in time for day trip to these amazing cities. The further you venture from a major city, the easier it is to get an authentic sense of what life in Italia is really like!
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