For the last night, after our hot, 3hr project presentation session, we cooked up whatever food we still had in preparation for the drive in the morning. Most then went down to the park beside the palazzo, while I walked down the entry road to find a good spot to watch the stars. Near the end of the road, I found a place to get through the trees into the corn field, where I was greeted with an amazing view of the full moon, stars, corn and tuscan hillsides, with a perfectly built tree right in the middle. Everything glowed from the light of the moon, and birds, crickets, and frogs were singing the nightly symphony. I sat, and I enjoyed it for a good 20 minutes before going to find the others near the fireflies and packing up for the night.

After about an hour of sleep, I was up again to wait for the sunrise. I woke up Brad and Derek so they could film it, and out we went to that same spot (which didn’t turn out to as great for the sunrise – too south-facing). But time was short, so they set up anyway, and I walked off to see if I couldn’t find a spot… and I did. It required a bit of running down a narrow country road, but I was greeted with a beautiful view of the sun rising behind a misty field lined with trees. What a way to end my stay in southern Tuscany (the region better referred to as Chianti)

We loaded up the vehicles and hit the highway, making the obligatory Autogrill stop along the way. To be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to Florence. It seemed like a big museum town, and after hearing comparisons to Siena, I really didn’t feel the need to stay here. We found our apartments, walked into the center to climb Brunelleschi’s Duomo, and get our first big glimpse of the city. Afterwards we visited the Santissima Annunziata piazza where a couple childrens choirs were singing on the steps outside the Ospedale. Ok, Florence, you get a few points for that.

Then after viewing the renaissance frescos within the forecourt of the church, we headed for the bike rental place before riding around the ring road and back into the centro for dinner. Biking works much better in Florence than Rome, and these bikes are even fun to ride. After another expensive dinner, and some gelato we went to get our passegiata on.

Walking through the Piazza della Signoria and enjoying the sculptures in the Loggia di Lanzi, I started to understand this city. I was surprised at the amount of english-speaking tourists, but most of them blend in very well (usually due to the clothing, but also the lack of obnoxious colours or speech). We continued past the Uffizi, and along the Arno to the Ponte Vecchio before going back for the bikes…

At that point, most followed the prof back to our apartments 15min east of the centro, but Morgan, Derek and myself were ready to take advantage of our first taste of real freedom, thanks to the bikes. We headed over the Arno and up the hill past the Piazzale Michelangelo, to enjoy a cold beverage on the steps of the Chiesa di San Miniato al Monte. And there we were. A few friends, shirtless, sweating buckets, at 12am on the steps of a church overlooking the city of Florence.. Duomo and Torre di Palazzo Vecchio in full line of sight. Life experience +1, followed quickly by a well-deserved coast back down the mountain and a soft, comfortable, single bed. Finally.

So after spending much of the day lounging around, we packed into the cars (a small van, fiat, and alpha romeo) and headed for Bagno Vignione to get a quick look at the springs in the center of town before driving to Pienza. Neat town, I can see the appeal of the place for the Tusccan tourist (luckily we pulled up just as the last tour bus was loading). The team did their research, the rest of us helped in the form of photos or other, and I caught my 2nd amazing Tuscan sunset. We ate a good dinner, loaded up again, and wound our way back through the dark countryside to our home in Dolciano, outside of Chiusi.

Once here, Rei, Jenny and I headed for the gardens just outside the main palazzo for the nightly firefly show. I had never seen a firefly in real life before this trip (saw a few on the first night), so it was a magical moment. Thick brush on either side, a few tall cypress trees lining one dge of the gravel road, and tiny blinking lights floating throughout. We caught some in a ziplock bag to show the others before setting them free.

I understand the appeal of Tuscany. When we first arrived 2 days ago, we drove through storms and pockets of sun, and much of the day continued to be variable. A group went off to the supermarket to buy some food and necessities while a few of us stayed to watch the bags and wait for the sun (Marino wasn’t home when we arrived). So we sat on the portico overlooking the small courtyard and countryside beyond, and relaxed.

I missed Rome at first, but I’m starting to adapt to this place. When the sun began to set, I was certainly pleased to have a real sunset.. in Rome, it’s basically day time, then a few minutes of orange light beams through the streets, and suddenly it’s night. Here, the rolling hills and fields and vineyards pick up the glow and the dew in the air and create such a breathtakingly saturated vista, combined with the fading layers of hills and the beams of sun through the sky, that it’s virtually impossible to capture in anything other than memory. We tried, but photos can’t see it, and words can’t describe it.

I’ll look forward to hitting the pool at some point, and visiting Montepulciano to conduct our research (we drove by it on our way there and back, and it does seem to be what I expected). But I’ll also look forward to returning to civilization when we drive up to Florence next week. – That’s one thing I’m still having a difficult time adjusting to – the scale of everything here. Everything is so close. From Rome, it was a 2 hour drive to Dolciano. It will probably be another 2 hours or less to Florence, and along the way, all of these hill towns seem to be within an hour of each other. This is the same as Rome was, where wandering for 20 minutes, we would stumble upon site after site of the places we studied. They were so grand, but so close.

That’s it for now. I need to figure out if we’re visiting Chiusi today.

rbo