More Tuscany - San Gimignano & Sienna

San Gimignano

We walked through the town and found a free museum that had a miniature version of what the city would have been like in the 1300’s. They showed all the buildings and we could work out the streets we had already walked down. It was really cool. Then inside they had some models of people doing the things that they would have done in those days.

Mum and Dad wanted to climb the biggest tower in the town so they could get a good view. That meant that we had climb up lots of stairs. I hate climbing stairs, we have had to climb too many.

Because we climbed the stairs though we could get gelati. There were two shops there that said they had the Worlds’ Best Gelati across the road from each other. We didn’t know which one to go to so we decided to go to the one with more people.

 

We had a walk around and I took some more photos. Mum and Dad love this one because you can see my reflection. It was a nice day.

Sienna

Sienna was about an hour’s drive from our villa which Emma and I thought was too far. Sienna is an old walled city with lots of the buildings the same as what they were like hundreds of years ago. When we were walking through we saw an awesome old door with scary knockers on it.

The first place we went to was the Duomo di Sienna which was the main cathedral. I really liked the inside of this church, it was spectacular. 

 

 

I liked the statues of all of the emperors around the roof inside it. It was like they were looking down on you. There were lots of cool mosaics on the floor.

We also went into the library where there were books that were hundreds of years old. The room was really bright and colourful with paintings on the ceiling. They books had lots of colourful writing in them and I thought it would have taken the monks who wrote them a very very long time to do.

 

 

Then we went outside and down some really steep steps next to the Duomo to a door at the bottom which lead into the Crypt. There was a famous painting in there and you could see the foundations for the church.

Mum had told us about a famous horse race they have in Sienna where people race around the main square with not saddles on. So we went to the square to have a look. I was surprised because the square was actually quite hilly and round. We could see a tall building with a tower that overlooked the square that was a terra cotta colour. Mummy was a bit annoyed because if we were there the next week we would have been able to see the horse race. We saw a picture in one of the shops where two of the horses in the race had no rider.

 

Because it was really hot we had more gelati to cool down. On the way out of town we saw a really pig with a fedora and classes on that looked really cool.

I liked Sienna so I’ll give it a 9 out of 10, again 1 point off because it was too hot.

Florence & Certaldo Alto

There are lots of cutsie villages and towns in Tuscany and Emma and I were worried that Mum was going to make us go to all of them. Luckily we didn’t, but we still seemed to go to a different place everyday. Some of the places that we went to were Florence, Sienna, San Gimignano and a the old town of Certaldo called Certaldo Alto

Florence

Florence is a really big place with beautiful bridges and statues and lots of nice squares

We started in Piazza del Signori because the Duomo was too busy. We got to the square and had a look at all the statues. We saw The Statue of David, a famous statue. There were lots of different statues.  One of my favourite was a fountain with a little boy and his dad. There were horses around them. I think it was the statue of Neptune. Then we went to the side of the square, upstairs to where there were more statues. 

 

 

 

From here we went into the courtyard of the town hall and wanted to take a photo of a little fountain but there was a pigeon on its head that wouldn’t move so we had to take the photo anyway. It was funny.

Then we walked across Ponte Vecchio. Ponte Vecchio is a bridge with houses on it. There were lots of expensive shops on there too most of them sold jewellery. For a pair of silver earrings it was like 2050 Euros. We found a little souvenir shop and me and Emma bought a little calendar for 1 Euro, lucky it wasn’t 1000 Euros. I really liked Ponte Vecchio because when you looked at it from another bridge you could see the yellow houses.

Finally we went to the Duomo which is the main cathedral in Florence. It had a big painting on the inside of the dome of heaven and hell and you could see God and Jesus. You could see in the picture lots of people praying on their knees and also some scary demons and skeletons chasing people. I really liked it. 

 

It was then time to go back to our villa but not before we had Gelati.

Florence was a really nice city and I rate it a 9 out 10, 1 point off because it was too hot.

Certaldo

We had a really great time in the old town of Certaldo which is called Certaldo Alto meaning “High Certaldo” because it’s up a hill. To get there you had to go on a funicular railway which is a little carriage that took us up the hill to where the old town was.

When we got there we saw that the town was walled but really small so we didn’t have to walk very much which Emma and I were happy about. I bought a really nice leather book to do my sketches in then we played a family game of hide and seek which was so much fun. 

By now everyone was hungry and thirsty so we found a bar and had a plate of local cheese and ham which was really yummy. I made a little cat out of it even though I’m not supposed to play with my food.

Pompeii

It was a long way to get to Pompeii from Atrani (where we are staying) so we had to catch a bus and a train. We caught the bus and the road was really windy. Mum kept saying that the cars coming the other way would have been freaked out because the bus took some of their lane. The view was really nice because you could see all the villages on the cliffs and the sea but I didn’t feel very well.

We got to the train at Sorrento and it was packed and hot and we saw some Aussies on it too.

When we finally got to Pompeii we lined up to get our tickets and someone asked us if we wanted a guide. Mummy and Daddy said yes. So we went into Pompeii and the guide pointed out Mount Vesuvius which is the volcano that erupted. He told us that no lava came to Pompeii - it was a combination of a heat blast and big hot rocks that rained down on Pompeii for 4 days that killed everyone.

The city was lost for a long time as it was buried under all the rocks and ash. People were living on the hills which were covering Pompeii. But it was because of this that the city was so well preserved and we could walk around it today.

The guide showed us the paved streets we were walking on which are the exact stones of 2000 years ago. He said imagine all the people running to get away from the volcano.

First we went into a temple where they used to sacrifice sheep for the gods. They didn’t eat the meat, they just left it. You can see the volcano from the temple.

He also showed us the big stepping stones that people used as a crossing. They were designed so that people pulling carts could still get through because there was a gap.

Instead of the Mums going to a café for coffee like they do today they all talked when they were going to get water from the many fountains around Pompeii in their terracotta pots. It was where they could gossip.

He showed us a rich house and it was made out of stones like a real house of today and we found a shady spot and the guide told us about the pictures on the walls and ceilings called frescos. The houses had no windows to keep the owners safe so when it was summer they lived and slept in the garden. When it was winter they slept inside.

We saw the Forum or the market square which everybody got their food, clothes, cooking stuff and everything else from. It was the major centre of town. You see they volcano from there.

This is where they had the bodies of the people who hadn’t made it out of Pompeii and they were frozen in the position of what they died. We saw a man who was putting his hand over his face and a pregnant woman was lying on the ground trying to save her baby.

There was a body of someone who they thought was a slave - he said you can tell from the belt around his waist because only slaves wore these belts to hold up their togas.

I felt really sad for everyone in Pompeii.

Our guide took us into one of the 5 bath houses that were in Pompeii. This one was one for the boys. He said cover the light from the window with your hands and look at the wall under it. We could see the face of Neptune who was the Roman god of water. Also in the bath house there was a fountain from a politician that said on it his name and how much it cost which was a fortune. The guide said it was a gift from the politician so that people would vote for him.

He showed us a common persons house and it was just small and plain. It had a cooking area which was just stones. I said I’d rather live in the rich house.

We saw some bars and he told us where the circle was they used to have a terracotta pot there which they used to keep the wine and drinks cool. Emma and I pretended that we were serving to Daddy and Mummy in one of the bars.

We also saw a bakery and you could see the grinder for turning wheat into flour for bread and the oven where it would have been cooked.

Then we found the colosseum and we went in there like we were gladiators and had a pretend fight.

I really really really liked going to Pompeii. I was worried it was going to be another one of Mummy’s cutsie villages but I loved it even more than Mummy, it was awesome.

I rate it 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 out of 10

P.S. If the volcano didn’t erupt we wouldn’t have got to see Pompeii so I was happy and terribly sad for the people.

Our Tuscan House plus Pisa & Lucca

Mummy and Daddy were very excited about staying in Tuscany. They told us that we would be staying on a farm in the middle of nowhere but at least it had a swimming pool. Emma and I were happy about the swimming pool.

When we woke up the next day Emma and I were excited because we were going to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I thought it was the leaning tower of pizza and that they would throw pizza off the top to everyone.

We had been told it was a tower that you could see leaning but we didn’t really know what it was going to be like.

On the way there we saw some sunflower fields so Mum made us stop and take some photos.

When we finally got to Pisa we saw how much the tower leant over and were surprised. Then we could see lots of people taking photos like they were holding it up so we had to do the same.

It was pretty cool to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
 

After Pisa we drove to another city called Lucca which was much quieter and nice. When we were walking to get our lunch and a gelati I saw a shop that you could rent bikes. I saw a bike that had 4 wheels and seats for all of the family. I wanted to go on this so I asked Mum and Dad and they said yes.

So we got the bike. Lucca has a big wall right around it that has a path on it so we rode the bike right round the walls. It was really fun.

We went home and went into the pool. That night we went into the village for dinner and had a walk around. We found a playground and Emma and I did some dancing and we had some family games. It was so much fun.