We went to the Medici Villas and to Vinci last weekend, and WOW!  The landscapes alone would be enough to turn even my younger brother into a master artist. (I’m recalling a time I tried to teach him to draw a leaf; talk about no attention span.  He’s more of the computer genius type )  Like I said, the views were amazing.  There were olive groves for acres, stone huts and castles, and the fog made it all the more impressive.  I hear that it’s only 4 euros to get there by bus, so I MUST find my way there again.

It was cool to see Vinci, where Leonardo da Vinci grew up.  The museum where his inventions were executed was not as impressive as the drawings of them, though.  It was exactly as I expected a museum of daVinci’s inventions to be.

The ride back to Florence was thrilling, as well.  The bus driver (whose name, I am ashamed to say, I can no longer remember) was a sharply dressed, “laid back”, older sort.  He’d wait outside of the museums and churches while we went in to tour, leaning against the bus with his cigarette.  He might have enjoyed the trip as much as we did, but he probably just thought it was another day like any other.  What I liked about the driver, though, was that he had NO qualms whatsoever about cranking the long, touring automobile around the razor sharp corners.  Even if the corners were between the hill and the edge of the “cliff”, and without any guardrails.  He’d just honk his cheery, albeit loud, horn to the beat of “Stink in the Barnyard”, then plunder on without a whit of worry that we’d all perish down the side of the mountain.

The passengers were not so flippant. His good nature seemed to compel him to soothe some of the screams away, “No worry.  I number one.”  He wasn’t lying.

These pics are a mix of both mine and Schweebs.  I forgot to bring my camera, so we had to share hers.