.: exploring toskana :.

Our adventures last saw us in Pisa, and the next day we departed the campsite to explore a region with landscape atypical to the Tuscany into the foothills of the Alps towards the North. First, we stopped off in the city of Lucca and strolled along the the tops of the Renaissance era burns and embankments that encircle the historic city-centre and admired the architecture below.
There was an ensemble of medieval buildings, including the cathedral that we toured, a high tower prominiently incorporated into every town and village in this area and a bank headquarters, which is one of the oldest in the world, founded in the thirteenth century. We went further along the River Serchio to marvel at the the so-called Devil’s Bridge built during the early Middle Ages. It is really named Ponte della Magdalena but astounded passers-by whom had never seen much in the way of complex engineering attributed such an impossible construction to something diabolical.
It crossed the river by Borgo and we wound our way up the steep mountains until Barga for a visit to the Dom there, impressively surveying the valley below and windowed with alabaster slabs, making for a dark interior on this less-sunny afternoon. With the uncertain weather, though the sun returned, we doubled back and headed toward the summit of Montecatini Alto for the evening, taking in the sweep of of the landscape, groves of oliv trees and vineyards.
The next morning, we saw the village and descended into the resort town below, the spa of the same name and spent a luxurious midday in the arcades of the baths.
We went on and stopped in Pistoia, which seemed a little gritty in comparison but was nonetheless nice to see.
Afterwards, we came to the village of Vinci, the namesake of Leonardo, and it made us wax philosophical, visiting the church where he was baptized some four-hinder and fifty years hence and then his birth home, imagining how different the course of history might have been if such a genius and enterprising mind had not been born at that time and place. Later, we crossed the wine-producing region of Tuscany where chianti comes from and eventually stopped in a little village called Barberino to set up camp for the evening.