Tuscany, Pisa, Florence

Tuesday 6-10-15

I haven't written much about our tour group but I think we have been so lucky with all the people on tour. Our tour leader is a young (31) man from Australia. He is doing his last tour before returning to Australia to settle down after spending the last 8 years traveling the world. He's been working with this tour group for about 2 years. We have about 35 people in our group and from all over the world, New Zealand, South Africa, USA, Cuba,  UK, Dubai,  Philippines, India,

Guatemala. There are 4 of us from Australia. We range in age from mid-twenties to mid-sixties. The group all gets on very well

and mixes. We have spent time with everyone but tend to spend most time with the other Australian couple who are slightly older than us and the UK couple (about our age and wife is a newly retired teacher) and the South African couple who again are around our age and we met on the first day before the tour started. 
Our accommodation has been in Ibis budget hotels and has been very comfortable. The only thing people have complained about is that there are no kettles in the rooms but to be honest for 3 star it's fine. All the dinners that have been included in the trip (and we've had 3 out 7) have been excellent. Most other nights we've been able to buy nice meals close-by to our hotel. 
Today we've driven from Cannes through to Tuscany. We followed the coastline line down and I didn't realise how mountainous this area was. We went through many tunnels, through mountains and over bridges that spanned the valleys. In many of the valleys were towns. We stopped off at the leaning tower of Pisa and took the very touristy photos.
We travelled on to the beautiful city of Florence in the Tuscan region of Italy. Here we were met by a lovely Italian lady who was to be our guide on a walking tour of Florence. What a beautiful city this is and it's history as being the centre of the Renaissance makes it even more interesting. To see places where Michaelangelo trained and lived as well as Leonardo da Vinci was astounding. We learnt much from our guide as we walked around the main pedestrian area of Florence and I really would love to return here one day and stay longer. After our walk we returned to the coach and took a 45 minute journey to our accommodation at Hotel Montebello in Tuscany arriving at 8.15pm. We had booked in to have a 5 course Tuscan feast at the hotel and were not disappointed!  We started as soon as we had checked in. A delicious way to finish a busy day.