14.-21. June ... a week with the SL in Tuscany
As the movie "under the Tuscan sun" is Cynthia's favourite and we watched it during our first "meeting" in March 2006, it was always a dream of Cynthia to visit Tuscany ...
... so we made a week free and took the old SL down to Tuscany. This was sort of special, because Thomas mentioning his "viagra replacement" kind of started our relationship ... here a photo on the "Spluegen" pass in Switzerland, 2300m above sea level, crossing the border to Italy ... not bad for a 22 year old car ...
... on the other side we drove down to Lake Como (here a photo taken from the pass) ...
... where we had our first stop on the way to Tuscany. We had booked a hotel in a little village directly at lake Como ... here us at dinner there.
Next day we drove to Cortona, Tuscany (where the movie was done) ... nearly exactly 1.000km from Weinheim. Approx. 100km from Cortona we left the highway and took little windy roads along the countryside ...... finally we arrived in Cortona (struggled to find the hotel!) and checked-in the hotel "San Michele", directly in the centre.
Photo taken from our room window to the right ...
... and here to the left, where you can see the beautiful countryside of Tuscany (the city of Cortona is on a mountain).
After check-in we went for a walk and came across a plaza with a wonderful view ... in the back of the photo (top right) you can see the lake "Lago di Trasimeno"
As we also used an old travel guide from Thomas' dad (from 1988), we found this hidden authentic restaurant, where we had our first dinner ... superb pasta and - surprisingly - a bottle of wine!
Next day we had a long walk around Cortona exploring narrow alleys (very steep!) ...
... here another one (restaurant del teatro). We walked up to the top of the mountain (with a huge church) ...
... and then had another three kilometre walk to a monastry, founded in the 13th century ... really amazing ...
... of course we had to walk back the whole way ... tired as we were, we had a little lunch ...
... and a dinner at the restaurant del teatro (pictured above) ... yes Cynthia had three meals a day! ... as she has now added approx. 150 grams, she's on a strict diet ...
Next day we took the SL (roof down) and slowly drove to Siena, walked around the city centre ... here a picture of the famous plaza del campo ... ... to be honest, there are nicer "plazas" in the world, but at least they charged us a ridiculous amount for two coffees there ...
... here the very impressive "duomo" ...
... after the long walking around, weight-enhanced Cynthia had to take a rest ;-) ... attention -> joke here!
On the way back we took little windy roads ... roof down, warm weather, wind in the hair (or what's left on Thomas' head) ... here the look back to Siena ...
... and another one ... it really is beautiful!
Next day we made another tour in that wonderful weather ... here the start in front of the hotel ...
... after a couple of kilometres we had a look back on Cortona (not the houses on the left and right ... just look in the middle on the hill ... sorry but Cynthia told me to write this in detail ... if you have any further questions to this picture do not hesitate to contact Thomas) ...
On our way to Montepulciano we came across these old ruins (attention: not the one in the car and not the one holding the camera) ...
... finally we arrived, where the famous wine "Nobile de Montepulciano" comes from ... here the central plaza ...
... here us in front of ... well ... a well ...
... another nice view from the city walls ...
... after buying a couple of bottles of wine there, we headed on ... here a look back to Montepulciano on the hill from the road.
Next stop was Montalcino, where the famous wine "brunello di Montalcino" comes from ... here in the background (seems all villages are on hills ;-)
We tasted the Montalcino wine, but it was too expensive for our taste ... so we bought another one! The way back from Montalcino was another two hours on small roads ... just fantastic!
This evening we had dinner in this restaurant, where we met a nice (!) American from Chicago ...
Next day it took us a very long walk to finally find the original house of the movie, Bramasole ... here it is!
Another one of our stops on this day was Arezzo ... close to Cortona ...
... and our final dinner in Cortona ...
Next morning, last stop, we drove to Pizza ehm Pisa ... we paid 15 bucks each to climb up that badly-engineered tower ...
... where we had a wonderful view over Pisa ...
... we could identify our parked car in the streets close to the tower ...
... and finally - yipeeh it's over - a photo of the two of us on the Pisa tower! Congratulations, if you had the patience to get to this point!
Bottom line: Tuscany is definitely worth a visit!