Day seven

Day seven. Sept 14th

Today we got up and headed back to Florencetown tours, who led our walking tour, but this time we were much more adventurous. Today was a Tuscany vespa tour. We headed in a white van outside the city on some bumpy roads to a rural little campground area, where we met our guides, Jacopo and Andrea. We signed some liability forms and got insurance in case of accidents, got helmets and had a little vespa lesson. Pretty simple but took some getting used to starting and stopping. At first they told us we had booked a double, meaning Anna and I would be sharing the same bike and only one of us would be driving. :( Well, we didn't want that. We paid a little extra and each got our own bikes. After getting a briefing of our route, we headed off. The drive was really beautiful, with scenic views of the countryside, small vineyards and houses, old churches and plenty of Cyprus trees characteristic of the area. We got to sample some grapes and the start of the season, see Machiavelli's birthplace,
And stopped at a local deli where we tasted good cheese and toasted fresh bread. As we left, Anna lost control of her bike and had a little crash. She was fine, aside from a small bruise, and got reprimanded a bit from our guides. More driving, then a tour of a local Tuscan vineyard to see how chianti wine and olive oil is produced. After the tour, we got to sample the wine, taste the olive oil with some bruscetta, and have a little rigatoni with ragu sauce. Not the Ragu brand mind you, but tomato and basil sauce. After we had our fill and a little caffé, we headed back on the Vespas, and headed down to a little gelato place.
This tour company was pretty smart, always having gelato in the tour. We headed back toward the camp, stopping one more time for photos at a scenic overview of the landscape.

After getting back into town, we headed to the duomo, Florence's major landmark. We didn't get to climb up the dome because the line was huge, but we went into the church and took lots of photos. We had a Tuscan meal that night, including capreise salad, tbone steak, roasted potatoes, and pork chops. After dinner we turned down our waiter's offer for dessert, but he gave us a shot of limoncella anyway. It's a lemon liqueur, tasting very much like cough syrup. Not to be rude, we still finished it, but it was a challenge. We headed to bed early in preparation for our first day trip the next day.