Florence and surroundings , Italy Oct.12 -16. 13

For a long time I had wanted to visit beautiful Florence ( Firenze ). I joyned a Finnish group for five days, but was mostly studying alone this marvelous city of about 300,000 inhabitants.It really was an incredible experience to go around the small streets especially in the medieval areas, and stop for a glass of wine or two on tiny piazzas. I joined the group mostly for the prepaid meals which were very good or even excellent in various ristorantes or tavernas. On the fourth day a bus took us on a route about 200 km in Tuscany ( Toscana ). We drove trough the famous wine areas to stay for few hours in amazing Arezzo and further in tiny Cortona with it's Etruscan museum. It was quite a climb to reach the top of the hill as well as it was on the first day to climb to Fiesol hill to visit Franciscan monastery and museum with the awesome view over the valley of Arno river and Florence. On the last day we still had the magnificent Uffici Gallery with its early medieval to baroque paintings including many of those by Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci. This trip was a great experience.