Tuesday 19 June 2012

Tuscany, our holiday in Italy


We have just returned from our holiday in Tuscany. Beautiful scenery and wonderful cities.

We have thoroughly enjoyed ourselves but all the walking visiting cities was tiring.
We stayed in the hotel Vittorio in Montecatini... quite a grand hotel. Our room was good and the bed huge and fairly comfortable. The food was tasty but not spectacular but we did have some wonderful lunches in all the different places we visited, which were real Italian food to me.  

Although it had a swimming pool, I only dipped in my feet after a day of walking around!!The spectacular city of Florence was our first place to visit. Just a short train ride from Montecatini. It was so beautiful with wonderful architecture.

Siena is the city where the famous Palio horse race takes place twice a year. During this special occasion, the main square in Siena, the Piazza del Campo, is prepared for the race as the ring around the square is covered with tuff clay.

We had lunch in this piazza and the most delicous ice cream!

Of course you have to visit the famous leaning tower of Pisa.. its amazing how it stays up.

We rested our feet and jumped on the open air bus tour here and it was a lovely way to see all the city.

This amazing tower is in Lucca;every where you looked was the most beautiful buildings

And this is just one of the many little shops in San Gimignano  a very pretty little village with narrow cobbled streets rising up to a centre square. It was very, very hilly!!
Our last day was a visit to a castle, Castelo di Meleto. This castle is a favourite venue for weddings and we met the bride who was to be married there the next day

It was a spectacular place..

This where  we were shown some authentic Italtian cookery. A volunteer was asked for to roll out the home made pasta and my DH had a go. (He was the only one !!)

Not a very good photo because it was me taking it and I pressed the wrong button and took a video! But he loved doing it!!
It was a superb holiday in Italy, which we went to by train across Europe. First stop by Eurostar club class was Paris and then from there first class by TGV to Milan and then onto Florence and from there to Montecatini. The train took us through the Alps and then beautiful Tuscan scenery.
A holiday to remember...we ate an ice cream every day!!  It did however take us a day to catch up with our sleep, as on the last day we were fifteen hours travelling back from Turin,another city to see,  but all in all well worth it.

It has been nice to be home and our own bed is bliss!

Chris xx

 

7 comments:

dulcinella said...

It sure looks you had a great holiday. Judging from the picture you had great weather too. I have to agree, Florence is a beautiful city as is Lucca. Within a month we leave for Italy for three weeks holiday and I can hardly wait...

Leslie: said...

Oh my goodness, what a wonderful trip! I've been to Forence, Siena, Pisa, and Lucca! But the other places I'd love to see! Italy is one place I just HAVE to go back to as the people, the food, the culture, the scenery - well, everything is absolutely spectacular. To go by train through the Alps must have been stunning!

Catherine said...

Looks like an awesome trip! I love that first picture!!!

Carol said...

Looks like you had a great holiday, I've never been to Italy but it does look beautiful.
Carol xx

Melanie said...

Sounds like a great little getaway!!! Love the photos. Everything is so beautiful.

Karen said...

I enjoyed seeing your pictures of Italy, Chris, and I'm happy to discover your blog!

Julie said...

Super pics, what glorious weather, hope you brought some sunshine home with you.