This day is always a bittersweet one. We miss the boys something fierce, but we’re never quite ready to return to regular life. Italy has been amazing and we can definitely see ourselves coming back someday. For as much as we’ve bounced around the country, we know that we’ve only just scratched the surface.

Arrivederci.

Initiate power tour. There is one “must do” on our list in Milan – to see The Last Supper. It requires tickets in advance and, by the time we booked, those were only available as part of a tour package. Not a huge hassle as the tour covers a few other things worth checking out, but the fixed time means we must schedule the rest of our day around it. So, as warm and comfy as we are in our bed, we hustle out into the cold (it is low 50s and overcast) to make our way back to Sforzesco Castle. We did a quick walk through of the place last night, but there are two exhibits we are interested in that we need to go inside for.

The first is a room called the Sala delle Asse (the Room of Wooden Boards, although that has very little to do with the story). In 1498, the Duke of Milan commissioned Leonardo da Vinci to decorate the room, which he did using trees, interconnected branches, leaves, and berries to evoke the feeling of standing outside, underneath canopy of mulberry trees. It is a little difficult to visualize, and the size of the room and condition of the frescos make it hard to capture in pictures, but standing in the room, looking up, it is the kind of thing you feel, not just see.

Over the years, as controlled of Milan passed through many hands, Sforzesco Castle was used primarily for military purposes. During that time, rooms like the Sala delle Asse were coated in think layers of white lime, and the original artworks were lost from memory. When Italy was finally unified in the 1860s, the castle was in such disrepair that it was slated for demolition and the land reclaimed for housing projects. It escaped that fate, of course (or this would be a very short post), and we have one more priceless memory as a result.

As part of the celebrations tied to the 500 year anniversary of da Vinci’s death, there is a multimedia show where they project, in 360 degrees, how the work was done, the various restoration efforts, and how it would have all looked back in da Vinci’s day. Quite well done, although it means they move you along fairly quickly to make room for the next group in line.

You have to look close, but in the first picture below you can see the original sketches da Vinci made on the walls in preparation for painting and, below that, a living replica in the courtyard where they are shaping mulberry trees to recreate da Vinci’s original vision.

Not to be out-turtled, tucked way in a gallery that you’d probably miss if you weren’t looking for it, is the Rondanini Pietà (not to be confused with his original Pietà in the Vatican), Michelangelo’s last work prior to his death. It is unfinished and still bears the marks of places where he changed his mind along the way so by no means one of his famous works, where can you stand all by yourself, a foot away from the handiwork of one of the greatest artists of all time.

There are plenty of other things to take in at the castle but, like many of the museums here, you can’t possibly stop and see it all.

We’re running late for our tour but, fortunately, near the meeting point is a place called Luini, where there is a line out the door to buy panzerotti – quick and cheap eats you can scarf down on the go. Turns out this is a famous place for the locals as well, and when we pass by again later in the evening, it is still rolling in the dough (I didn’t just stoop that low, did I?).

Our tour starts at the Duomo – yes, another church. With a guide though we learn some interesting things like:

We have to come back on our own to visit the inside but are suffering from OCD (over-churched disorder) so by no means do it justice. It is crazy huge and, with of breeze, you could probably fly a kite inside.

Finally, the cherry on top – a fitting metaphor as it takes us back by Chocolat for gelato – The Last Supper. I admit, I figured this was in another museum somewhere but not so. It was originally painted on the dining room wall of a Dominican convent and there it remains (despite the building being bombed). The upside is there is really nothing else there to compete for your attention. Like the Sala delle Asse, they move you along in boot camp fashion so no matter the effort to get here, 15 minutes is all you get.

I could go on for quite awhile but consider this 4,000 words:

Not a bad day.

The closer we get the end of our trip the faster the days seem to fly by. We’ve crammed Venice into less than 48 hours and are on our way to do the same with Milan. We are smarter now that we were two days ago though, as just behind our hotel there is a vaporetto stop that will drop us off right in front of the train station. Not as good of a workout as rolling luggage over bridges and cobblestones for the better part of a kilometer, but it’s not like we’ve been eating bad and need the exercise, right?

The fast train back across the country takes a little over 2 hours, followed by a sketchy subway ride to our hotel. We’re only staying for one night (tomorrow night we’ve booked a room at the airport hotel so we aren’t in such a rush to make our early morning flight) so picked a place tight in the center of town that should be convenient to everything that we want to see. Sure enough coming out of the subway we are face to face with the Duomo.

Most of the tourist stops are closing down for the day so we’ll have to wait until out tour tomorrow to see inside, but with an evening to kill, we figure we can at least get a feel for the city and where things are. Along the way we check out the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, an open-air (but covered), four story shopping mall where I can finally add to my Giorgio Armani and Versace collection. And if you focus in at the very end you can find the ultimate accessory for any outfit – a six pack of nuggs!

We also check out Sforzesco Castle, the former digs of the Duke of Milan and now home to several museums.

Most important though, we manage to find the shop we have been told has the best gelato in all of Milan. It does not disappoint.

With only one full day to spend in Venice, sleeping in is a luxury we can’t afford. We’ll need to cover plenty of ground, so a hearty breakfast is in order. Like a carb-rich waffle.

Ummm, maybe more than one. Although it is a dense beast, so perhaps they took a full-sized waffle and compressed into one bite-sized morsel. I guess we’ll find out in 30 minutes or so if it turns out I’m hungry again.

It is a cold, overcast day today although, fingers crossed, no rain. We head back towards the center of town, this time on foot, stopping here and there to observe how everyday activities happen in a city without roads. Take, for example, a Venetian garbage “truck”, or a Venetian ambulance.

Taxis, delivery trucks, police cars, and fire trucks are all boats of one form or another. And like any other city, there are traffic jams, honking horns, and people double-parked.

For 20 Euros, you can buy an all-day ticket on one such vehicle, the vaporetto. These are basically water buses that move along the canals and between the islands shuttling people from stop to stop. It is also a great way to see Venice and all of the different architecture on display.

Last night, I took some time to brush up in a little Venetian history so have a bit better understanding on how the city was built, how fast it is sinking, why the canals don’t always smell so great, why there are so many palaces, and so on. It is quite interesting, even though it paints the picture of a city that is in irreversible decline.

One of the main issues they are dealing with these days is flooding. Venice is in a tidal zone, and between centuries of slowly settling into the mud and rising sea levels, low lying parts of the city end up underwater more than 100 days a year. Today is one of those days and St. Mark’s Square is one of those places. The rain has also arrived. Ugh.

To get around during the floods, elevated sidewalks come out, funneling all of the regular foot traffic onto a handful of narrow, crowded walkways.

The queue to enter the cathedral also backs up, in the rain, along on these elevated paths. Once in a while, someone tries to jump the line, only to be subjected to a severe case of stink eye from the line monitor. You don’t cross a momma bear and her cubs and you definitely don’t cut in front of my fellow adventurer.

After dozens of churches, just when you thought you’d seen it all, St. Mark’s throws a curve ball. It’s huge (of course), but unlike all of the others, it is covered with gold. Hard to imagine passing the donation basket around with a straight face in a gold church, but you do what you gotta do I suppose.

For an extra 4 Euro, you can take the stairs up to the balcony (which is part of the museum). It is a great spot for some views of the square below and the Doge’s Palace next door.

There are some other museums here in Venice, but it feels like we’ve hit our limit. Instead, we spend the afternoon walking through the streets away from the city center sampling some of the different foods we find along the way

We also take a side trip over to Murano, where all of the famous glass-blowing factories are set up. It is a definite step up in quality from all of the souvenir shops selling “Murano glass”, but the prices also quickly rise. in tandem. Plenty of very cool stuff to look at, but with kids and a dog, I’d be constantly on edge waiting for someone to knock it over were we to bring something home.

We finish up the day at a quite restaurant near our hotel where we enjoy a meal sitting right next to the canal. I have to admit, Venice has grown on me a little and this is the perfect way to end our short time here. One more stop and then our time here is done.

It is a bit of a relief to finally drop our rental car off back in Florence completely unscathed. The freedom to go where we wanted was certainly a plus, but driving here, especially int he cities, is not for the faint of heart. Of course, where we’re headed today, a car would be pointless, so a win-win all around. Instead, we’re back on the fast train for a two hour ride to the heart of Venice. Before boarding, we decide we have to try the local McDonalds at least once, as in every country they are always a little different. Case in point, the Tasty Basket, a combination of chicken nuggets, chicken wing and, yes, stuffed and fried olives.

Compared to crammed airplanes and crowded airports, moving around by high-speed train is a small slice of paradise and it is a shame we can’t seem to figure it out back home. The seats are comfortable, there’s plenty of leg room, and I can actually open my laptop and type on it without using T-Rex arms. My trusty sidekick continues work on her sleep study, comparing quality of sleep across different modes of transportation. Watch the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine for her upcoming paper.

We’ve been a bit conflicted about Venice. On the one hand, we’ve heard reports of suffocating crowds, insane prices, and a city that has sold its soul to tourism. On the other, well, it’s Venice. Never knowing when we might pass this way again, we decided we needed to at least give it a shot. For me, the early returns are troubling. Arriving at the station, we see 5 cruise ships parked along the docks. And as we start the short walk to our hotel, there are people absolutely everywhere.

We are staying near the north side of island, away from the Grand Canal and, fortunately, the further we get from the main area the calmer things start to get. By the time we wind our way through a warren of side streets and cross several bridges, the crowds have fallen away and we start to get a better feel for what makes Venice unique.

While it isn’t the Grand Canal, we are on a canal, and can watch the various boats go by from our window.

The hotel has a scheduled shuttle to St. Mark’s Square and, after traveling all day, that seems like a nicer option than walking the mile or so. We’re disappointed to find that rather than taking the short route through the canals, giving us a chance to check out the city along the way, it instead goes all the way around the perimeter of the island, taking at least twice as long it would have on foot. Live and learn.

It is after dark by the time we finally dock so we don’t get much in the way of pictures.

The next few hours are spent exploring, eating (if you have ever wondered what it would look like if you took a scoop of gelato, put it inside a bun, toasted it in a panini press, and then covered it with whipped cream, we have the answer), and getting our bearings set for tomorrow.

All in all, I’m still not sold. If luxury brand shopping is your thing, Venice is your Mecca. I can’t think of a designer that isn’t represented here and, walking along I’ve now been introduced to countless new ones. Maybe it’s a testament to the quality job they did recreating it in the desert, but if you told me I was at the Grand Canal Shoppes in Las Vegas, I probably wouldn’t doubt you. For me, that’s not a tick in the plus column.

Sad news from the lab. Upon our return from Montalcino, we were devastated to find that housekeeping disposed of our experiment. Unable to rally from such a loss, we spent a quiet day wandering around the countryside near our hotel, wondering what could have been.

For dinner, we drive by a few local spots that Google directs us to but, finding nothing too inspiring, soon end up back in Siena for our final evening in Tuscany. Tomorrow we’re off to Venice and, unfortunately, just a few days from our return trip back to regular life. That’s possibly even sadder than the lost gelato.

Gelato update. At T+12 hours the shape is still holding and can pass the Blizzard test without shedding a drop.

Tuscany, or course, is wine county. And while we’re not really wine people, it seems a shame to be here and not try and take advantage. With that in mind, our destination today is Montalcino. Those that are wine people might recognize the area for Brunello, a wine unique to the area that generally runs on the pricier side of our usual Charles Shaw and Yellow Tail.

The weather is perfect and the hour drive takes us through the countryside, so no complaints until we finally arrive at Montalcino. As Murphy’s Law would have it, we chosen the weekend of the Sagra del Tordo to visit – the busiest weekend of the year. Parking is non-existent and we finally settle into a space far down the hill in the Itchy lot.

The upside of festivals is usually the food and this one is no exception. There are are tents set up all around the main gate and tables full of people. On any other occasion, this is just my jam, wandering from tent to tent, sampling all of the different offerings. Something is different today though and my body, still scarred from its encounter with Italian shlopnik, is having none of it. Fortunately, there are some great places to grab a snack in town, including a bakery that my fellow adventurer swears only sells pastries with a bite taken out of each one.

The main activity in town, however, is wine tasting, and every other shop seems to offer samples of the local hooch. It turns out that I can notice a difference between a good wine and a mediocre wine. The problem all along has been trying to tell the difference between a cheap wine and another cheap wine.

Felling a little happier than usual, we head into the old fortress and up onto the ramparts to take a few pictures of the city before hiking back down to car and heading back to the hotel to check on our gelato.

It has taken a superhuman effort on the part of my fellow traveler to not load up on the acres and acres of shoes, jewelry, and clothes available here in Italy. Bags are her kryptonite though and, on that front, she will not be denied. After hours of research, she has narrowed her choice down to something made by and old couple that has been making leather bags by hand for over 50 years. The shop is in Siena and it is no coincidence that we are headed there today.

Aside from old men making leather products, apparently there are a couple of sights worthy of our attention is Siena. The first is the Duomo. Started in the 1200s when Siena was at its economic peak, the original plan called for building the largest basilica in the world. Before it could be completed however, war and the plague dried up funding for the project and a significantly scaled-back version was finally constructed by converting the original transept into the nave and apse. Seeing it today, it is difficult to imagine the grandeur of what they had in mind to begin with because even the junior version is stunning.

Also worth seeing is the Piazza del Campo, the central square that is unlike any other we have seen so far. Shell-shaped and sloping down like an amphitheater to the Palazzo Pubblico, we can’t help but stretch out in the sun and watch daily life go on around us. We’re not lucky enough to be here at the right time but, twice a year, they cover the Piazza with sand and host the Palio, a horse race pitting the various districts of Siena against each other for bragging rights.

It is dinner by the time we have seen all we set out to see and, after a nice meal by the city gates, we stop at a small gelato stand for dessert. After stopping at literally dozens of gelato shops during our journey, we’d say it isn’t possible to find bad gelato in Italy. But you can. What we’re served has the consistency of Fred Meyer sugar cookie icing and seems unusually warm. We can’t eat it, but are intrigued to understand what it actually is and determine whether it will melt. This photo is from T+2 hours.

Things seem to be running at a little slower pace today. There is so much to see and do here we could always be on our way to somewhere, but as Nick likes to remind us, we are “old heads” (soon to be “ancient ones”), so perhaps taking the pace down a few notches notches is inevitable. Add to that a forecast for rain and it takes a few false starts before we are finally out the door. Coming from the Pacific Northwest, how bad could a little rain be?

We’re visiting a small hill town today called Sam Gimignano. It’s pleasant in all the ways that an old Tuscan village should be, but I think we’re getting a little numb. There is a gelato shop claiming to have won the world championships so that is a definite plus, but most everything else feels designed to appeal to the tour buses that are vomiting out day trippers from Florence.

The rain is pretty relentless as well, so rather than puttering around until the restaurants open for dinner, we call it early and head back towards to hotel. On the way, we stop at a pizzeria we noticed on the way to Il Grillo Moro last night, eagerly anticipating a deliciously thin and cheesy Margherita. Sadly, it has rained so hard that water coming down the chimney has put out the fire in the pizza oven. Definitely never saw that coming.

We suffer through some pasta (they make a noodle here called Pici that I’ve taken quite a fancy to) and a dessert that we’ve never heard of called Crema Catalana. Turns out to be a Spanish version of a French dish (crème brûlée) that we are now eating in Italy. How very cosmopolitan.

We’re on the move today. It has been a wonderful five days in the north of Tuscany but, it is time for a change of scenery (and the same breakfast buffet) that we hope to find a few hours south near the city of Siena. Along the way, there are a few stops we have planned which, all in all should make for a a pretty full agenda.

Our first stop is the Ponte della Maddalena, also known as Ponte del Diavolo (Bridge of the Devil). Legend has it that the original builder, struggling to complete the project, asked the Devil for help, offering the soul of the first being to cross it in return. It is on the way to a number of places we have visited already, so we have seen it a few times from the road, but this time get a chance to stop and walk across the river.

From there we continue on to Lucca. Again, this is a bit of a familiar place as the roads to Pisa and Cinque Terre both pass through it. We’re curious to see what lies behind the old walls we keep having to drive by. The walls themselves are some of the best preserved in all of Italy, running for 4km and topped now by a public promenade.

Once inside, we find a charming, old, Italian city. Where Florence felt too big and busy, and village like Castiglione di Garfagnana too small and quiet, Lucca feels just right. There are few crowds, but still plenty of shops and restaurants the line the pedestrian streets to choose from. One the catches my attention is the Torture Museum, although the rest of my group seems far more interested in seeing what else Lucca has to offer. To the surprise of no one, in a place filled with various contraptions designed to inflict unimaginable pain and suffering, it is a bit of a sausage party.

At one time, over 200 towers filled the skyline of Lucca, originally designed for defensive purposes, but eventually just a way to let your neighbors know that you had more money than they did. Only a few remain, once of which we power our way to the top of to get a bird’s eye view of the city and to watch some poor tourist almost soil himself when the bell he is standing under starts ringing.

The other cool tower in the distance with the tress growing at the top is Guinigi Tower. With a tree-loving fellow traveler often calling the shots, normally we’d make the climb to the top of that one as well, but with limited time we need to just enjoy it from afar.

Heading back to the car, we pass through the Piazza dell’Anfiteatro which, like the Piazza Navona in Rome, was built on the foundation of an old Roman amphitheater. With a few days to spare and a nice AirBnB, life could definitely be worse.

Driving south from Lucca, the landscape soon changes to the rolling hills of our imagination. We are staying in a small village a few minutes south of Siena in what used to be the country retreat of a wealthy Sienese family. It is a picture-perfect Tuscan location but, as we found out at our last stop, small goes hand-in-hand with no food choices. Fortunately, our trusty Goog-machine guides us to a place not far away called Il Grillo Moro. Hands down some of the best food we’ve had yet.