Cruise - Florence/Pisa, Italy

We started off this day driving to Pisa to see the leaning Tower of Pisa. It is beautiful – much more so than it looks in pictures. I really wanted to climb it, but they only let a few people up at a time and we didn’t want to wait a single second of this leg of our trip in a line.

Our guide took us to Florence next. We started off at St. Minato Church (Porte Sante Cemetery). It had the most amazing views of the whole city. They are famous for their glass jewelry, which I was happy enough to buy on the way into the city. 

In the middle of the city is the Piazza di Santa Croce. This is where Galileo, Michelangelo, and Machiavelli are buried. 

Just around the corner is the square Palazzo della Signoria where you can find one of the replica’s of Michelangelo’s David. The real one was removed and put in a museum. I’m not a huge fan of “penis art” so we quickly took a picture and moved on to the amazing Santa Maria del Fiore. It is simply gorgeous.

The Santa Maria del Fiore.

The highlight of our trip was visiting another winery, which is pretty funny considering we don’t drink. The countryside of Tuscany is divine and just like the movies. In fact, Under the Tuscan Sun was filmed only 45 minutes from where we were. This winery was super awesome for the fact that the wine cellar was used as a bomb shelter for 120 villagers who lived near by during WWII. The villagers lived inside the cellar for 10 days during one of the more serious bombing raids. They all survived, thankfully.

The winery was totally self-sufficient. They make wine from only grapes that they grow. Olive oil from their own olives. They made us bread from their own wheat. They use electricity from sun panels in their orchard. We ate salami from their own pigs and cheese from their own goats/cows. The food was amazing and you can tell they love what they do. Jeremy wanted to pack it in and join them.