TUSCANY TRIP!

This past Wednesday Chris and I went to Italy.
The plan:
Fly to Pisa with our bicycles and bike from Pisa to Florence
The fact:
We arrived to Pisa as did the pedals (which you have to take off in order to check them in), however our bikes did not…
We flew with this AMAZINGLY cheap airline called EasyJet which is great, but you’re exposed to incidents like this happening.
So what could we do? Change plans and have fun…

After a 5 minute bus ride we arrive to Campo dei Miracoli, a very beautiful square where we finally saw: the famous tower, which is actually leaning and is very impressive, the Cathedral and the Baptistery.

The hotel was very nice. Next morning we woke up early and climbed to the top of the tower. This was a great experience because during the ascension of the spiral stairs you become dizzy. Afterwards we visited the cathedral and walked around the city. In the afternoon we took a train to Florence. It rained the whole way, which made us think that was kind of “lucky” that our bikes didn’t arrive…

Florence was an amazing experience, everything in that city is beautiful, we stood in line for 2 hours in the Palazzo degli Uffizi in order to see my favorite painting: The Birth of Venus by Botticelli.
The cathedral is beautiful; we climbed to the top of the bell tower (414 steps) and had an amazing view of the city. Also crossed the Ponte Vecchio a couple of times (which is the only bridge over the Arno river to survive the Nazi bombing in WW II)



On Friday night we arrive to Siena, without booking any hotel, because this part of the trip was made in place of our bike tour. What we didn’t know was on that exact night, a huge concert was going on in the central square resulting in no empty beds in any of the hotels in town.
After calling to more than 20 different hotels, asking people on the street if they had a bed at home where we could stay, and even asking in the Grand Hotel Continental (where one night costs 350 euros). Chris suggested we go to a hospital and ask if they had any free beds. I contemplated the option of sleeping in the train station, almost making me cry, we found the most wonderful hotel. As luck would have it, earlier in the day Chris took a picture of some pages in another tourists guide book. Zooming on the camera's picture we were fortunate enough to find the number for Borgo Grondaie, a hotel built on an old Tuscan farm, still producing olive oil today.



Siena was definitely the highlight of the trip. As the best-preserved medieval city in Italy, it has the most beautiful cathedral I’ve ever seen. In this city we also climb another 400 steps to the top of the bell tower were we had the best view of the whole trip.

On Saturday night we arrive to Berlin were our bikes were waiting for us. After putting them together we did the only biking of the trip: BACK HOME!!

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