MPD

Thankfully, I’m back to using an American keyboard for a little while, so hopefully this entry will have fewer typos than the last couple…

After Sienna, we drove another hour to a farmhouse in the country. The land in Tuscany is very pastoral and beautiful. Rolling hills, grape vines, and olive trees dominate, while the occasional hilltop farm house merely serves to complement nature (well, the cultivated nature).

Almost needless to say, the lunch was amazing. We were served fairly simple pasta with tomato sauce, but everything was so fresh that I had to get seconds. In addition, we drank a very smooth, delicious red wine, had fresh bruschetta, salomi, cheese, and enjoyed hard biscuits for dessert. Everything was wonderful. Even the company was good. Gemma and I sat near an Indian family who really wanted to know how to get their sons into MIT, a young Polish couple on their honeymoon, and a family from Australia on holiday visiting their daughter who is an exchange student in France.

I was sitting closest to the Australian family, so I mainly spoke with them. Their oldest daughter is 18 and is spending a year in France with the Rotary exchange program. Of course, we then talked about Diana and each of our experiences through Rotary. I think it must be only in Stow that the “change families after three months” idea didn’t work out. Another thing I found interesting is how well immersion works for learning languages. The Australian girl knew no French going into the program, and after five months in France, she says she can now hold a conversation. Pretty impressive; I can barely do that in Chinese.

The tour next went to a small hill town named San Gimignano that contained 14 still-standing tower houses. San Gimignano survived most of the violence that racked other hill towns in the middle ages by voluntarily ceding itself to Florence for financial support after the plague. These days, San Gimignano is most known for the white wine it has produced since the 1200′s, and for being home to the “world-champion” gelato store.

When we visited, we first climbed a tower house because I really wanted to see the inside of one that had probably survived better than the tower houses in Ireland. Sadly, most of the inside has rotted away and been replaced by a set of modern steel stairs that take you to the roof. In some ways, the modern stairs were scarier. Instead of solid stone, they were thin grating through which you could look down and see twenty to thirty feet below. Luckily, the view from the top of the tower was worth the climb.

When we came down, we rushed to the gelato store to make sure we had time to wait in line and still return to the bus. It was everything we had been promised. I was able to get a cup with half orange-chocolate and half mint. I’m glad we had to leave, though, because I could have easily spent hundreds of Euros and gained many pounds in that store. Gemma and I also decided to buy a bottle of the famous wine, since it was only 3 Euro.

Finally, we visited Pisa before returning to Florence. There wasn’t much time, so we couldn’t go in anything or explore the town. Basically, we looked at the architecture of the cathedral and the baptismal (half medieval, half gothic), and admired the leaning tower.

Upon our return to Florence, we knew there was one sight left to see: the Serial Killer Museum that we had noticed the night before. This was probably a bad choice for 10:30 at night. The man at the desk smiled and assured us that we would be the last customers. Let me tell you, after seeing reproductions of serial killers and their homes for an hour while listening to an unnervingly creepy voice in the audiotour describing their gruesome deeds (none of which shall be repeated here), we rushed back to the hotel, securely locked the door, and jumped in bed. I, for one, definitely dreamt about serial killers that night. I’m not sure about Gemma, though; she wouldn’t say.

This entry was posted on June 25, 2007 at 12:16 pm and is filed under travel.