Stairs, Stairs & More Stairs

Yes! We went to see the Duomo today. The stairs weren't bad at all (other than the fact that whenever we wanted to stop, there were people behind us so we couldn't). Once we got to the top we could see all of Florence. 

From the ground it's kind of dirty and smells like smoke but surprisingly from above it was gorgeous. There were a ton of parks with trees and the roofs of most buildings were a deep red. This created a great color scheme.  The people were REALLY tiny and so were the cars. I felt like I could squash them like a bug. The climb down was a little nauseating (because of the spiral staircase) but I felt better after food. 

From then until the tour bus came, the cousins played cards. The bus ride was 50 minutes and when we got off we were in a tiny town called Monteriggioni. We walked around, got gelato and went up on a wall from the 13th century built by the Romans. 

After Monteriggioni, we went to a winery. The region we were in was called Chianti and I learned that wine had to be 80% of the Sangiovese grape to be a "Chianti Classico". We got

to see the vats that the grapes went in and the barrels that they aged the wine in. Then we went to taste a couple. We had 3 reds and 1 white. The red came with bread and olive oil, salami and cheese. The white came with little almond biscuits. The white was my favorite! After the tasting we went to a town called Castelina en Chianti. 

I was a little dizzy from the wine but wasn't hungry so Helen and I split a small "Frutti di Bosque" gelato. It was my second one of the day and I'm planning on getting my third tonight!