What happens when two travelers after crossing Vietnam, Bolivia and seeing the Northern Lights take a trip to Tuscany? It happens that the journey of two has become a journey of three. Giulia's advice and the story of her first trip with a child.
My cousin is a travel blogger and when I come back from a vacation I always think of writing her a few lines to tell her how it went, so maybe she can come in handy given her work. I thought about it when I got back from Vietnam, when I came back from Bolivia and also when al Polar Circle i saw the northern lights. I've never written to her, ever. This time, however, I decided to do it, because this year's journey was the most intense, the most incredible, the one that took us farthest. We have been to Tuscany.
No, I'm not crazy, it really was a journey with all capital letters, unpredictable and adventurous as no one else had ever been ... It was our first trip in three, and excuse me but it's not a little So ... Every trip starts from the night before, always. The last things in the suitcase, dinner with a little wine, sleep full of dreams and expectations. Again it all starts the night before with an unparalleled happy hour; we slept nothing (we don't care about New Year's Eve), we sang for hours and hours (continuous lullabies), drank and ate to exhaustion (milk, milk and more milk as if it were raining milk), and contemplating with the light on and off this brand new son who was so beautiful we didn't think it was possible to come out.
Result, my first narcoleptic crisis after only one hour of departure! And this is truly a world first. Departure without a timetable, decides little Hector without remission. Then we went straight to the highway, we took it in Fano and as I said we had not yet arrived in Rimini that I was already sleeping. It does not matter, the pilot is a tough guy (not for nothing I had a baby) and we proceed at full speed ... or at least we try since the traffic is completely congested by accidents, works, slowdowns and feedings, that if instead of being in the car towards Tuscany we were by plane, we would certainly have arrived in Asia or thereabouts.
However it can be done, the Pupo is not even a month old, he sleeps blissfully and when he wakes up he wants to eat, so we pull over, please him and change him, and then we are ready again that not even the Ferrari pit stop is so efficient and fast! First stop Altopascio. The town is not too noteworthy, nice but similar to many others; the place, however, is really strategic, a stone's throw from the highway and a short distance from Lucca, Pisa and Pistoia. We chose theCavalieri del Tau hotel, clean, spacious, with restaurant and excellent cuisine, infinitely kind and impeccable staff. The room assigned to us is spacious and our super wheelchair fits us perfectly. There is also an elevator which, given our travel conditions, really makes a difference. For the early afternoon we choose Lucca.
Delightful old town full of foreign tourists, even if they are the real flagship the walls and their promenade around the city surrounded by green parks and meadows, where the inhabitants flock to jog (and finally we hear about Tuscan). They are so beautiful and colorful to look at that we have an infinite desire to run too… but then we take an ice cream and lie down in a meadow, and the desire to run goes great. Feeding, look on the cell phone at the Europeans of swimming, relaxation and then back to the hotel. The next morning it's the turn of Pisa.
Piazza dei miracoli for how beautiful it is really too much too full of people, to enter anywhere you need a ticket ... obviously we give up and leave. For us the real miracle is the quiet walk in the streets of the center, almost completely mistreated by those who pass through here. The afternoon you go to Pistoia. To park between one-way streets and crazy navigator we lose a good half hour, then we arrive at the center. Pistoia is also very beautiful, but we are fascinated by the possibility of visit the underground and then we approach the Ceppo hospital to start the tour. The structure, certainly beautiful, is completely covered by scaffolding for the renovations, so the glance leaves a lot to be desired.
The guided tour which lasts about an hour starts at XNUMXpm, we arrive at XNUMXpm and we don't even find the ticket office (which is set up a few minutes before departure), there is not a soul around to ask, and Ettorino gives the first alarm signals. Of course, as a beginning it is not exactly the best ... but let's not give up! At the right time the guide and a small group of people arrive. The tour starts fromsmallest anatomical amphitheater in the world (really interesting) and then continues towards the undergrounds which are nothing but the ancient bed of the Brana stream ... the guide is good, the suggestive place, but we definitely expected something more, even if perhaps we are a bit distracted from Ettore who in the meantime claims his milk ration, which for him above or below the ground really makes no difference ... The next day we leave, change hotels and go to Firenze. However, the ticket for the visit to the underground included a reduction for another museum, an anti-bombing shelter in the north of the region, we decide that we are interested and then we change the route to San Marcello Pistoiese. The journey is beautiful, between mountains and intense greens, the road is not very busy and there is also a beautiful sun.
The museum SMI it is in Campo Tizzoro a few kilometers past the town. For the guided tour there are the three of us with Ettorino promptly awake and seated in his arms on the sash, and a couple from Ferrara… few but good! The guide is really very good and vaguely resembles Luigi Lo Cascio. The rooms of the museum are set up inside the old factory of the Italian Metallurgical Society, a small-caliber ammunition factory active since the early twentieth century.
After the interesting and curious journey through machinery, bullets and various objects, the visit continues downstairs, in the shelters built in 1937 to protect the workers and their families from the war. As we go down the stairs the temperature also drops, we arrive at one depth of 20 meters, the hiding places are about 2 kilometers long and entirely dug into the rock, the behavior orders in the event of an air attack are written in the gray walls: you cannot spit (due to tuberculosis) and it is advisable to sit without smoking and possibly being silent to save oxygen. In the niches the department dedicated to dressings and anti-gas equipment. It is a dip in recent history, alive and full, definitely recommended and very very interesting, it was worth it!
The journey continues and we arrive in Florence, two nights at the Turist House hotel very close to the central Piazza Santa Maria Novella. Great location and lovely furnishings and rooms, definitely good price, the only drawback is the elevator is missing and also to get to the reception we have to go up a long flight of stairs ... in short, not exactly the ideal accommodation for those who like us have a space wheelchair in tow, but armed with patience, strength and back pain you go up and it comes down to the need without too much complaint!
Florence is an enchanted city that words cannot tell, so I'll just say that our baby has a penchant for snacks with a view and we have experienced breastfeeding everywhere: in front of Palazzo Pitti, To Uffizi Gallery (also equipped with a very comfortable changing room), and under the David (clearly the original at the Accademia Museum, which Ettore certainly did not bother to copy in Piazza della Signoria). If you pass through Florence, however, beyond the Museums and Works of Art, a small siesta deserves, and really deserves it, a tiny ice cream parlor behind the Duomo.
"From Edoardo”, That's what it's called, you eat a organic ice cream hard to forget with a delicious waffle of the cone cooked and turned by hand on the spot! After Florence the holiday is running out, with the mouth still dirty with ice cream we arrive at Saint Gimignano full of towers and above all of tourists, only to end up in Volterra. Here we stay at the Antica Badia hotel, also without a lift but with rooms on the ground floor, and this is definitely a relief! The owner is very kind and the breakfast is super abundant (we eat downstairs, and I won't tell you our face when we still see stairs! Don't worry though, you can also go from outside and there is a slide! So for once we can to avoid all architectural barriers! And that's no small feat).
Okay, after a quiet medieval evening in the streets of the town, it's time to go home, it has also started to rain! Ettorino is an angel and sleeps peacefully, we are full, full and satisfied and happy… Ours first Journey in Three... of course it may not have been intercontinental, but the deep sense of stillness that rises slowly from the stomach has never made us so ecstatic returning from a journey ... it may be because this was a special summer, because for once rain or sun, wind or snow did not change our good mood, or perhaps and more likely because three people are always traveling around the world. We wish you not to stop at nothing, and we hope that these few lines can bring you advice.
