A week in Tuscany

Have a lot to update - so I will be summarising for the moment. Will hopefully add details and pictures later.

1. Had a nice rest day after our first visit to Florence. Went for dinner at the famous Cane e Gatto (Dog and Cat) in Siena. Probably the nicest food we've had on holiday - excluding Mum's cooking of course! Had our first truffles, which taste like concentrated mushroom.

2. We went on a Piero della Francesca pilgrimage - he was a pioneer, and the first master, of perspectival painting in the Renaissance. We drove to his birthplace at Sansepolcro, with his famous "Resurrection", then to Arezzo with it's masterpiece fresco-cycle "The Legend of the True Cross".

3. Day trip for Anna and me to Pisa. We made our way through the nondescript city to the "Field of Miracles" where stands the Duomo, baptistry, cemetary and... the famed Leaning Tower. Took all the usual forced perspective photos of the tower (which is shorter than we expected, but beautifully ornate) and ate gelato from a Lonely Planet-recommended place. Mmm!

4. Long countryside drive through some of Tuscany's finest wine growing areas. Went to Pope Piccolomino's hometown of Pienza - he spent a lot of money rebuilding it in the Renaissance style, very pretty. Had a picnic lunch on a cliffside, alongside a posse of feral cats. Next stop Montepulciano, where Dad bought some wine (surprise surprise!) and I had a look through a leatherwork shop, on the site of an Etruscan tomb (!). We were having dinner back home on the verandah when we saw a wild red deer running about on our lawn. Holey moley.

5. Florence take 2. Siena's promising morning had devolved into rainclouds by the time our train arrived in Florence. I'm not sure filthy weather really improved the city in our eyes, but we got to visit some of the world's most maagnificent art collections - the Uffizi (a large Botticelli collection, plus the best works by Giotto, Da Vinci and Michelangelo), Bargello (former prison, now a collection of statues including Donatello's "David" and Michelangelo's "Bacchus"), Academy (Michelangelo's "David"), Medici Chapel (Michelangelo's Medici tombs), Pitti Palace (something by everyone who was anyone) and a handful of churches. Phew!

I may have done too much yesterday, and got a migraine. Wipeout!