Exploring Tuscany

We are writing this blog on a computer in the tourist office in Borgo San Lorenzo.

The last couple of days have been very hot and very interesting. Deciding to use the campsite as a base, we drove out to Prato on Saturday. We arrived there as all the shops were closing and it was a ghost town - a scruffy one at that. We cycled all around trying to find something interesting to photograph and remember with little success.

On Sunday we drove to Chiantishire, as it describes it in the tourist book, south of Florence. These are the villages that the Brits have taken to their hearts and purchased houses in and around there - no accounting for taste. The drive took us along the SS222, a very, very winding road amongst the acres of vines and olive groves. This area is where all the pictures are taken - typical hillsides with red rooved houses and the odd cypress tree dotted about. It is very pretty but the villages are nothing to write home about in our opinion. San Gemanignon is the main tourist town - hence the high cost of the parking there - 2 euros an hour and we were there for five hours. It is very beautiful though and thats where we had our Sunday lunch in a restaurant called Il Castello. It was like a castle inside - all stone walls, suits of armour and coats of arms. The food was good too. We drove on from there to two other towns - Castellano and Greve - whats all the fuss about we wonder because they don't press any buttons for us. There is basically one piazza, one church and a street with toursit shops on it. Maybe the heat is getting to us! The drive back along the winding roads seemed endless and we were happy to see Esmerelda again. Two Brits had camped alongside us, Len and Nadine from Grimsby - and we sat with them chatting and catching up on gossip with the obligatory bottle of wine until they left us to watch the Euro cup final in the bar. We retired to bed not caring about the football (gasp, horror)

Today we are having a more chilled day to recuperate and have cycled around Borgo San Lorenzo looking for internet points in an effort to keep up with emails and the blog. The Tourist Office came up trumps for us.

Tomorrow we plan to take the bus to Florence and see that - now that will be stunning and we will take lots of pictures. Some of which will be posted on the blog when we get to a wifi hotspot and can use our laptop.....unti then....