Yesterday was our last day in Tuscany. We started they day out by driving to Volterra, another one of these great old towns that are so very well preserved. Our GPS lead us clearly off the beaten path, we drove mainly on gravel roads, but the views were out of this world beautiful. Well, we saw a sign that said "Pisa 63km", so after Volterra, we drove there.

Having Bob as a driver is like hitting the lottery, we pretty much always find parking in the midst of action and at hours when it should be impossible to find a tiny little parking spot. I am hoping, that I haven't jinxed us now...Well, Noah was almost a little impressed by the leaning tower. Pisa is so "touristy", but that's why we all want to go there, and to all the other "touristy" places in the world. The reason why it is "touristy" is obvious, though. The Piazza dei Miracoli, the square of miracles, with the leaning tower, the duomo, the baptistery, are so well preserved monuments to history. It is not surprising tourists want to see that and flock here from allover the world. I have to be honest, I hate being a "tourist" but I wouldn't want to miss the touristy stuff, not in Italy and not anywhere. It is touristy for a reason! Well, here is my tourist shot (this is all Noah had patience for) of Pisa...

In the evening, we went back to San Gimignano for one last time. No matter from where you approach the town, you can see it sitting on the hilltop from a distance.

San Gimignano during the day is overrun by tourists, but again, righteously so. It is beautiful during the day, but we were lucky enough to stay in an agroturismo closeby, so we stayed untill it got dark. You kind of can imagine what it must have been like there in medieval times when the stores have closed, most people left the town, and it gets dark and quiet. Our agriturismo http://www.agriturismocesani.it/ , by the way, was fantastic, everybody was superfriendly, and the views...well...this is what I woke up to this morning...

So, not too bad, right? Well, on this trip, I am learning to embrace my inner tourist, I love to do backroads travelling and to finding places and to me, the countryside and landscapes will always be more attractive than a city, but then again, as I was reminded in Pisa, the tourist attractions are visited by so many because they are something special, in this case something that mankind created on a green field and made it a miracle...wow, that's cheesy, right ;)