Tuscany - we're here

After a midnight cruise to the vaparatto storage yard for the night, we managed to get back to Lido Island and set off to Tuscany yesterday, a quiet and uneventful trip until a tour group got on our Regional train in Florence and filled it up. They just happened to be going to Montecatini Terme, our stop. Montecatini Terme is nice and the accommodations are quite comfortable. What we did not realize was the number of spas in  the area. This is like an overgrown Harrison Hot springs and Robson street combined. Its hard to keep Sue on the sidewalk and out of the stores. We are planning on having a spa day on Thursday in the healing waters.

Montecatini Alto

We took the hotel bikes for a spin today, toured the large park and took the funicular (tram) up to Montecatini Alto on the hill above where we are staying. Sure glad we did not have to walk up this hill. Everywhere you go there are stairs and hills to climb in Europe! Some more interesting churches and former castles.

The funicular from Montecatini Terme to Montecatini Alto

Going down to Montecatini Terme

 After seeing all of those war movies with snipers hiding in the trees, can you see the guy sitting in this one. We have never seen a tree with camouflage bark before.

Camouflage tree

Nothing is ever the same here - always a variation of something we have seen before. It seems that many of the most interesting sights are in various stages of restoration work. Today was mostly a relaxing day and get ready for the rest of this week. Temperatures today  were 26 or 27. I keep reading about the cool temperatures you are experiencing in the Lower Mainland and my heart goes out to you.




We are off to Lucca tomorrow.  The food and wine in Tuscany are our favourites so far and we have had too much of it so we need to do some more serious walking.

Take care.

Ira