Tuscany has always conjured up romantic images of golden-hued landscapes, with its rolling hills and cypress-lined roads. I had a mind to just jump in a car and drive--see what we stumbled across. As a result, I put much less planning into this portion of our Italian adventure than the Dolomites, taking a more on-the-fly sort of approach.

Our final stop in Italy was the famed Cinque Terre ("Five Lands"), part of the Cinque Terre National Park (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), along the northwest coast of Italy. These clusters of brightly-coloured villages, seemingly tumbling down the hillside into the Ligurian Sea, have so captured the imagination of travellers around the world that it should have been no surprise to find these destinations to be extremely busy.

There has always been a kind of magic to Venice, this floating city on the Adriatic Sea, built on over 100 little islands. Its unique appeal, perhaps unsurprisingly, has led to a real overtourism problem–over 20 million people visit every year (half of which are day trippers from cruise ships and the like), and indeed multiple friends warned me off Venice to avoid the throngs of tourists.

Three seems to be a magic number. Three Musketeers. Three Stooges. Three Men and a Baby. So perhaps it is no surprise that this trio of mountain peaks, Tre Cime di Lavaredo, is such a popular spot in the Dolomites. In fact, I seem to have a penchant for triple mountain towers, as hiking to see the Torres del Paine for sunrise was the impetus for my trip to Chile.

One of my bucket list items while in the Dolomites was to hike the Gran Cir Via Ferrata at Passo Gardena. Via ferrata literally translates in Italian as “iron path”, which are protected climbing routes found in the Alps involving steel cables, rungs, or ladders secured to the rock face, to which climbers would typically affix harnesses.

It was only a short drive from the Alpe di Siusi to what would be our base for 3 days, Ortisei, the main village of the Val Gardena. Fun fact for the linguists: the majority language in the area is actually Ladin, a Romance language which is now the officially recognized language in South Tyrol. This charming town of just under 5000 people had everything we needed and was centrally-located, serving as a good jumping-off point for the region.

Alpe di Siusi (or Seiser Alm, as it’s called in German) is a Dolomite plateau, considered the largest high-altitude Alpine meadow in Europe. As part of the Dolomites, it’s been classified as an UNESCO World Heritage site. It was to be our first stop in our tour of the Italian Dolomites. This epic mountain range, which was the impetus for my originally-planned trip to Italy in 2020 (which went awry due to world events), is located in South Tyrol, the northernmost province in Italy.

A sadly abbreviated post, but at least something for the record! My last day in Florence was a relaxing one, as I made my way around the gorgeous Palazzo Vecchio. It was just a never-ending parade of gorgeous ceilings, painted with scenes of mythological figures such as the trials of Hercules. They even had a map room, where all the walls were lined with historical maps of places all over the world. From there, I waited in a nice long line to see the inside of the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore. I decided to forego climbing up inside the Duomo, as I’d already had a number of fantastic views of the city.

As I'm horrible at keeping up with things, this will be a highly abbreviated summary of the day's events. Today was the day for the Uffizi Gallery, and I had tickets booked for the afternoon. Before I went, I popped into the Bargello National Museum, which is primarily devoted to sculptures (one of my favourite art forms). After perusing its extensive sculpture collection, I headed to the Uffizi. Its collection was massive, though I was a bit sad that several sections were closed for renovations. I was able to glimpse at Botticelli's famous work "The Birth of Venus", amongst others.

It was to be a relatively relaxing day, as the only "cultural" activity I had planned was visiting the Galleria dell'Accademia to see David (the other one) in the late afternoon. I did plan to get in all of my shopping, so I made my way across the river mid-morning to do some browsing. My first stop was back at the Mercato Centrale, as I had a few requests from back home for silk scarves and tasty balsamic vinegar. I perused a few stalls and ended up settling on a couple pretty scarves, including one for myself.

I had a fairly leisurely start, rolling out the door mid-morning. The only thing on my agenda was the extensive Pitti Pallace and Boboli Gardens. Housed within various wings of the palace were several museums, including the Palatine Gallery, Costume Gallery, Silver Museum, among others, as well as the Royal Apartments. Luckily my apartment was only a brief walk away, so it wasn't long before I had two tickets in hand (bizarrely, you bought one ticket for the Gardens and the a couple of the museums, and a different ticket for the Palatine Gallery and Royal Apartments).

When traveling alone, I used to get very early starts–eager to pound the pavement and take in the sights. I remember buzzing around Tokyo for a solid 10 hours. Perhaps it’s age or just my deteriorating stamina, but I find it increasingly harder to do a full 8 or 9 hours of walking around, particularly alone. It also doesn’t help that Italians eat fairly late, starting around 8 pm–ironically, that isn’t actually late for me, as David and I usually eat around then, but it means you’ve got a fair bit of time until dinner. So I’ve taken to more leisurely starts, lounging until mid-morning, that way I’m not completely knackered by the time dinner rolls around. I had a few things on my list of things to see today, including the Galleria dell’Accademia, best known for housing the statue of David.