okay then, this may end up being a few parts as its a ton of pics but we ll see.
the whole trip was meant to be a hiking trip where we stay in hostels across tuscany at nights and spend the days walking to the next destination however the weather ended up being funny so we decided to cut down on the hiking and do a bit more sightseeing+ restaurants in the cities we end up in.
first up was
Milano which imo isnt all that beautiful a city at least compared to what followed. highlights there were the Castello Sforzesco
[IMG]http://s8.************/9lasjw3ud/DSCF2818.jpg[/IMG]
and the dome which up until this point was probably the most beautiful church i had seen
[IMG]http://s7.************/azyg4bh5n/DSCF2838.jpg[/IMG]
i tried to draw it but we only had an hour left before till the bus to florence left and i miserably failed cuz i underestimated the time itd take to draw all those tiny details.
Florence is an amazing city. there are countless great restaurants and sights that we ended up staying almost 3 days and still didnt manage to see the original David sculpture. owell there s always next time.
[IMG]http://s13.************/r9w5fabzb/DSCF2840.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://s7.************/wjy6c91gb/DSCF2856.jpg[/IMG]
view of florence with the city hall and the dome:
[IMG]http://s8.************/qfbwinbsl/DSCF2865.jpg[/IMG]
after Florence we took a bus to
Passo dei Pecorai which is in the heart of Tuscany and decided that the following day we would finally get around to doing our hike. after having delicious wild boar for dinner we took out a map and roughly guessed that the distance to our next destination (we had booked all the hostels in advance) is roughly 25km. not easy but surely manageable we thought. that hike turned out to be one of the epicest challenges either of us had ever done rly
this is the route we did (32.5km according to google maps haha)
we figured that the whole thing would probly take us around 7 hrs incl breaks and that if we start early ish we d get there at around 5pm or whatever.
it all started out smoothly with the trip from A (Passo dei Pecorai) to B (
Greve) being all nice and flat. despite leading along the main road it was nice to walk next to a river and see loads of trees (which turns out to be sth i really have been missing here in malta. the green color is so vitalizing)
[IMG]http://s15.************/70amvgawr/DSCF2898.jpg[/IMG]
but then the whole bit from Greve through
Badia all the way till travernelle, despite being very beautiful, was uphill, downhill and then uphill again which was really draining.
[IMG]http://s9.************/66qry8pjj/DSCF2902.jpg[/IMG]
once we got to travernelle it was around 4pm and our feet were dying and according to our tourist map the final bit shouldnt have been too hard but our sense for distance was kinda messed up at this point plus we took a wrong turn so that by the time we got to E (
barberino) the sky was already showing signs of yellow and red
luckily most of the way was downhill however at around 6pm we got to a bit which is not at all a walking path. we hat do wade through the remainders of a river and then were in the midle of a forest with darkness setting in around us (we did have phones for emergency but at this point we thought we were so close that we decided to push it)
[IMG]http://s10.************/3nst6xoft/DSCF2908.jpg[/IMG]
we arrived 15 minutes before darkness, absolutely shattered
. the whole thing took us 9 full hours
bunch of lessons were learned that day (inb4 u ****** this is dumb and dangerous
) but most of all i m pretty proud that we actually managed to do this whole trip despite being tired long before it was over.
then our last day was in
Siena where we just relaxed and walked a little around the city and enjoyed a bottle of wine and delicious food:
[IMG]http://s24.************/codfxrhat/DSCF2916.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://s10.************/cf9hc23g9/10102013973.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://s23.************/5kvgnph5n/DSCF2920.jpg[/IMG]
every day we enjoyed traditional italian delicacies and i have to say, i have never eaten better food than during this week in italy. the pizzas, spaghetti, tortellini, panini, wild boar, coffee, chianti wine and most of all the Risotto ai frutti di mare (omgomgomg) were soooo good! sadly i didnt take many pictures of said food but i will make sure to learn how to make all of them!
probly missed a bunch of stuff but this just about sums it all up