San Gimignano & Tuscany

Well, we are nearing the end of our time in Florence... We leave for Venice tonight.

Yesterday we woke up, not sure what we were going to do with our day, so we went to a recommended town, San Gimignano. It still takes a while for me to understand how to pronounce it, but today i finally said it correctly. It is a small Medeival town in Tuscany... built within walls and everything! We took the train toward Siena, but were directed to get off at "PoggiBonsi"... Poggy-what? Ask me how to pronounce it when i get home... hopefullly I will remember. Its quite fun to say. Anyway, we get off at the station, take a short bus ride, and all of the sudden we are in an italian dream! The town was so great and we exhausted ourselves as usual walking every square inch. We climbed one of the 14 remaining towers of the city (used to have 60 in the old days...) and saw yet another beautiful site! Rolling Tuscan hills...

Now, Kristen and I have taken a new job as tourists. We decided to call ourselves the "Photo Fairies". There are so many travelers who have to take unfortunate pictures with just one of the couple, or the whole family minus the sacrificial mom or dad (or even youngest kid... we have seen it all), so we decide to step in and take pics for them! its quite fun -they are usually really excited, like its some novel idea to ask someone to take it for you. So we spent some time on top of this tower not only enjoying the view, but using our magic fairy photo skills.

Today we had another exciting day around Florence. Just outside the town we went on a bike tour through the hills overlooking the city. It was amazing. I really loved it... my philosophy is -what better way to travel and see things, than by bike?? We had a great tour guide -Per, or "Pear" as it is pronounced. We rode the first 3.5 miles uphill.... a little challenge for the morning... and then took a break overlooking the city at Fiersole. Then, we rode on, toward the other side of the hills away from the city and into vineyard country! During lunch, we entertained the rest of the group with our stories and funny observations. Thank goodness we were in the group today, I think we spiced it up a lot. We took a tour of a vineyard, and then biked the rest of the afternoon. Kristen and I entertained ourselves (besides the views) by singing along the way and making the others laugh. Per got a kick out of us and said we obviously had a lot of fun together.
We think so!

One other observation from the last few days....
You know how you meet those people that are just "cool" -you know who Im talking about ... always have great stories, seem to get more out of life than ordinary joe, and those people you just kind of want to hang out with and see if you can pick up on their fun out of life? Kristen and I have made a very bright observation...You always wonder where they are -They are out doing it! Theyre not going to be just sittin at home hangin out. They are out doing the cool things. And we have met them. One of our favorite things is to meet people along the way. Always interesting and fun stories.

We are off to Venice, the city of canals!
Ciao!