Florence 2: Tuscany in a day -stairs, hills and escalator

On Tuesday, we chose to do a tour of Tuscany which included Pisa, San Gimignano and sienna. We were picked up at 7.15am and arrived back at 8.30pm. A huge day and as a number of people said, what do you expect when you try to see Tuscany in a day. A weird day which started by us being separated on the bus. One of us sat next to a Spanish non-English speaker while the other one sat next to a woman with a dog. Neither were particularly great experiences. Pisa was beautiful, the tower leaned and there was a nice church. No time to climb the tower unfortunately said one of us but we did find a McDonald's which was great. Next stop was lunch and wine tasting in a typical Tuscan vineyard. However huge traffic jam added additional hour to our trip. No fun. We visited San Gimignano which is one of the most famous medieval villages in Italy and sits on a hill overlooking gorgeous Tuscan countryside. Lovely but a bit medievaled out after Germany/Austria. Then another hour at least to Sienna, a beautiful medieval town with an enormous arena and cathedral. Yes another ABC. Sienna is really pretty and famous for the horse race which takes place in the arena. Interesting that every town or city in Italy wants to have the Biggest cathedral with the highest tower. Sienna was also interesting for having about 6 sets of escalators to take us up the city. Much better than the other two towns where we had a million stairs and monstrous hills to climb. Unfortunately we lost a couple of people at San Gimignano which made everyone a bit anxious. Two Mexicans who are probably still trying to find their way back to Florence.