Day 9 - July 15, 2013 - Lucca - Sienna-San Gimignano-Florence

A scenic day in Tuscany!  We went to Siena and ate lunch with Aida (our tour director) and Alex in a local restaurant.  Next we drove to San Gimignano, one of my favorite places! We shopped and ate lunch with Alex in this most picturesque medieval town. We found an air conditioned restaurant playing American music! I loved this village because it was small, very clean, and had great shoppes! We also had espresso with Aida & Alex went we arrived..Photo's by the wishing well and Michael flipped a coin for good luck!  This town is also famous for their ceramics.  We are high up in Tuscany region.  We made a quick stop in a co-op grocery store for fruit! We bought two bananas for .74 cents E.

Every village has many "piazza's" - usually around a church or a cathedral - there is usually a gelato & cafe shop in every Piazza~ Our dinner stop was very, very high up on the mountain top - Castel de Verrazzano.  This is a beautiful castle built 1,000 AD and we learned how they make their Italian wines - mostly Cabernet but we were able to taste Rosso & Cabernet with our delicious dinner.  The dinner was served  by courses - Pasta (Penne Rigate) with tomato sauce, drip of olive oil, grated cheese (very close to what we make at home) Garlic bread (fantastic), pork, salad and beans.  For dessert - almond biscotti soaked in dessert wine!  We loved it and the entire visit at Castel de Verrazzano!  Everyone was so happy when we got back on the bus!!

On to Florence (Firenze) Italy! Checked into hotel Grand Hotel Mediterraneo http://www.hotelmediterraneofirenze.com/ - logged into the free good WiFi (which I always do went I get to the next hotel) and then took a shower and went down to the lobby to join about nine people from my group for drinks at the "American Bar" - off to bed.