Tre Giorni in Toscana (Three Days in Tuscany)

When I started to look at Florence as a travel destination, I realized that while the city has a lot of interesting sites to visit, it is also surrounded by several other points of interest in and around Tuscany. So Florence acted as a base camp to visit neighbouring cities, with the time in between those excursions used to see Florence itself. The trips to and from Florence also gave me a chance to see different parts of the Tuscan countryside.

Day 1

Since I didn't have any scheduling commitments on the first day, I used this day to take the most time-consuming trip, which was an excursion to San Marino and Bologna using a bus tour. I try to avoid using bus tours due to their relatively high cost and convenience (you learn a lot more from travel by going out on your own). However, a trip on my own would have involved one train trip from Florence to Bologna, another train from Bologna to Rimini, and then a bus from Rimini to San Marino, totaling over four hours in travel one way. In comparison, the bus tour was only slightly more expensive and would save a few hours on the round trip.

The trip from Florence to San Marino was very scenic. The bus heads northeast through the Northern Apennine mountains, with thick forests and sweeping valleys in between. Once you are through the mountains, the northern part of Italy contains flat plains filled with neatly rowed vineyards (where they grow the grapes used in chianti). This made for a dramatic approach to San Marino, as its capital city is located on Mount Titus, which juts out from the plains and has a steep approach on the side facing northeast.

San Marino City is small and contains a series of narrow roads that wind back and forth up to the three iconic towers of San Marino. After the guided tour for the bus group, I had just enough time to climb up to the first tower and then across to the other two towers. I was surprised that only about half the tourists there bothered to see the first tower, with even fewer going to the second, and barely anyone going to the third. I think the short duration of the visit prevents a lot of tourists from attempting to see all three towers and the climb likely discourages a few more. So if you meet anyone else that has gone to San Marino, ask them if they've visited all three towers, because I now consider it a badge of honour to have seen all three up close (especially given the trouble it takes just to get out to this country).

A view of the Northern Apennine mountains from San Marino, facing southwest. This side of Mount Titus has a gradual slope that allows buildings to be placed most of the way down.

A view of the second tower (La Cesta) facing south. The east side of Mount Titus is much steeper, giving the towers a more imposing appearance, akin to Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria.

The third tower (Montale) of San Marino. This was the one tower that you could not enter, as there were no adjacent buildings to visit. Despite the few tourists that made it out this far, the southward views from this area were the best that Mount Titus offered.

Piazza della Liberta contains the Palazzo Pubblico (the town hall of San Marino City) and the Statua della Liberta. The view from the left faces west, overlooking the northern edge of the Apennine mountain range.

During my short stay in San Marino, I was able to get my passport stamped and visit both the Ufficio Filatelico-Numismatico (where you can see various San Marino coins/stamps) as well as the Basilica del Santo and Church of Saint Peter. I also had enough time to get a glass of Hofbrau beer. Of all the places I looked around Europe, it was San Marino where I was finally able to find the last of the original six Oktoberfest beers that I had yet to drink.

From San Marino, the bus headed northwest to Bologna. Due to traffic congestion, we only had about 90 minutes to explore the city, but I was surprised by how many tourists were visiting that day. I had enough time to visit the main town square (Piazza Maggiore), the large church adjacent to the square (San Petronio Basilica with its unfinished facade), and a few other churches and towers (Tuscan cities are filled with them) including the Tower of Garisenda.

The Tower of Garisenda, with the tower of Asinelli on the right. The land in Tuscany must be very unstable because Garisenda leans like the Tower of Pisa. It is hard to tell the extent of the lean from the angling of the photo, but you can get an idea by looking at the bricks at the base of the tower.

Day 2

The second day started with a half day trip to Pisa. The train from Florence going west to Pisa only takes about an hour and 15 minutes, but the countryside doesn't offer much in terms of scenery (mostly flat generic farmland).

Pisa is a small city and you can see most of the sites in half a day. You really have to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person to appreciate the scale of the structure and the way it leans, especially since the construction of the building was halted because of the lean, with subsequent levels built at an angle to counteract the leaning, which gives the exterior of the building and the climb up its stairs a strange warped feeling.

Although it was stabilized in 2001, the Leaning Tower of Pisa feels like it could tip over at any moment.

A view from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, with one of its bells on the right. This is a view facing west, with the Battistero and Duomo below.

Photos were not allowed, but I accidentally took a picture of the inside of the Duomo (Pisa Cathedral).

While the Cathedral and Tower area of Pisa was packed with tourists, the rest of the city was sparsely attended. Some parts even felt a bit like a ghost town. On the way back to the train station, I checked out the Piazza dei Cavalieri (which contained a beautiful building called the Palazzo della Carovana), a couple of small but elegantly decorated churches, and the old but colourful buildings along the Arno river (including the Guelph Tower).

I scrambled back to Florence so that I would have at least a few hours to see some sites around the city before sunset. Unfortunately, there were long lineups at most of the major attractions, so I was not able to see the interior of the Duomo of Florence (Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral), but apparently the interior is relatively plain except for the interior of the dome. The lineups for the Accademia Gallery (45 minutes) and Santa Croce Basilica (5 minutes) were shorter.

Inside the Galleria dell'Accademia. Like the Mona Lisa at the Louvre, all of the tourists focused on the most famous piece and largely ignored the other great artwork displayed right next to them. The original David is in the middle, but there are two other Michelangelo sculptures in the hallway: on the left is the Atlas and on the right is the Bearded Slave.  

The main altar at the Basilica of Santa Croce.

The Piazza della Signoria was easy to see as it was out in the open. It contained several famous statues, including the Fountain of Neptune, Hercules and Cacus, and a replica of Michelangelo's David. Adjacent to the square is the Loggia dei Lanzi, which is like an open art gallery containing several impressive sculptures as well (most notably the Medici Lions, Hercules and Nessus, and the bronze statue of Perseus with the head of Medusa).

The Piazza della Signoria, with the Loggia dei Lanzi to the right. The large building is the Palazzo Vecchio, with the David replica and the Hercules and Cacus sculpture at the entrance. The Neptune Fountain is on the left side of the building and a statue of Cosimo I is on the far left.

I had enough time before sunset to check out the Ponte Vecchio (Vecchio Bridge), which was a semi-covered bridge lined with touristy shops and buskers. Every popular travel destination has an overrated tourist trap, and for Florence, it's this bridge. I didn't have time to walk all the way to Piazza Michelangelo, as I had to catch a football game that evening, but I don't think I missed much since I already saw the original and one replica of David elsewhere, and I already got a scenic (albeit short) view of the city when I flew in during my arrival.

The football match was the last game of the Serie A season, with ACF Fiorentina hosting AC Chievo Verona. Like the match in Rome, security was very tight, which meant that it took over an hour to enter the stadium and I didn't see any pyrotechnics in the stands. However, the crowd was still loud throughout the match. The only problem was that Stadio Artemio Franchi is a very old stadium and designed for multiple uses, so the stands at the end were further from the field and the seating was at a flat angle, leading to a very distant view of the game. ACF Fiorentina dominated most of the match and won 3-0.

Stadio Artemio Franchi during a match between ACF Fiorentina and AC Chievo Verona. The stadium was filled to near capacity in the home fan sections, but the away fan section was almost empty.

Day 3

I had an excursion to Siena planned for the third day, but after seeing the long lineups in Florence the day before, I decided to visit the Uffizi Gallery first thing in the morning and avoid the crowds before leaving the city. While the Galleria dell'Accademia is a small museum that can be viewed in under an hour, the Uffizi Gallery is much larger and takes around two hours to see everything (still at a quick pace). If you're a fan of Renaissance art, this is the art gallery to see, as it includes paintings from Leonardi da Vinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli and Raffael. It even has a small foreign artists collection with a respectable collection of Dutch and Flemish paintings.

The most famous painting in the Uffizi Gallery is probably the Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli. This was actually a distant shot as I had to crane my camera above a small crowd gathered around the painting.

Another famous painting in the Uffizi Gallery is Tondo Doni by Michelangelo.

The last part of my trip was to see Siena. The train trip south took about 90 minutes, but the view of the Tuscan countryside was more scenic than the day before. The southern part of Tuscany consists of plains peppered with small hills, and at the top of most hills was a well-designed home or church. One town (Certaldo) even had a small castle at the top of its hill.

Siena itself is a very hilly city, so I got a good workout going up and down its narrow streets (especially since it was around 31°C that day). I only had time to see the major attractions around the city, which included the Piazza del Campo and the Siena Cathedral.

The Piazza del Campo in Siena. The building on the right is the Palazzo Pubblico and the Torre del Mangia.

The Siena Cathedral (Duomo). On the right side of the cathedral near the back, there is a tower with thin black and white stripes (not in the photo), which match the tall black and white columns inside the cathedral.

Part of the Siena Cathedral includes the Biblioteca Piccolomini, which contains the archives of various Renaissance documents as well as beautifully decorated walls.

So those were the highlights of a packed three days in Tuscany. There were a lot of minor sites that I saw along the way (too many to list), and while I did not get to see the inside of the Florence Duomo or visit the Piazza del Michelangelo, I still managed to see the major sites of four Tuscan cities and one other country as well as the countryside throughout Tuscany.

The exterior of Cathedral of Santa Maria dei Fiore (Duomo), with Giotto's Bell Tower on the right.

As an aside, congratulations to FC Barcelona for winning the UEFA Champions League, thereby making it a treble for them this season (domestic league, domestic cup and European championship). Since I managed to see the team last October, it means that I got a chance to see a treble-winning team play live. This was only the eighth time a team has won a European treble, although the fourth time in the past seven years, which indicates that parity in football is declining even further.