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April,2010
· Paragliding
March,2010
· San Francisco - Sebastopol
January,2010
· Nürnberg + Berlin
December,2009
· Saas Fee
· Look what I got from Santa ...
· Colmar
November,2009
· Two Weeks in Moscow
September,2009
· Gotthard & Tessin with Ria 2009
· Gotthard with Philipp 2009
July,2009
· Provence Vacation
January,2009
· The Ant and the Cricket
July,2008
· Crete Vacation
May,2008
· Birthday Love Ride
January,2008
· Silvester
November,2007
· Victory!
September,2007
· Toscana Vacation
August,2007
· BodyFlying
June,2007
· Bday Grill Party
May,2007
· Three days in Paris
April,2007
· Turbulence
· Yeehaw!
March,2007
· Geneva Auto Salon
· Ski Weekend
· Swissmoto 07
February,2007
· Poker
· Three nights in Paris
· Snow in Zurich
November,2006
· Cooking with Adam
· Season's end
· Biking progress update
September,2006
· Freestyle!
· Hungary Trip
· Dead Flies
August,2006
· Videoton vs. GC Zurich
· Andalusian Vacation
June,2006
· Bike club meet
· Tour with Phil
May,2006
· Bday Party
· May 1st Bike Tour
· Magic / Google Video
· Anthrax Concert
· Sechselaeuten
April,2006
· Reflecting on Mortality
· John outdoes me again.
· Pre-Sechselaeuten procession
· Proud Bird
· She is back online!
· Hi Gillian!
· Finally realistic shop display mannequins
· I was in Montpellier and all I took were these crappy pictures.
· Primitive Man
· Back from the USA
March,2006
· Party at John's place
· Oops, I did it again!
· Snow Day
February,2006
· I'm famous
January,2006
· Private Fiction
· Tabula Rasa: 2006
August,2005
· Matterhorn
· Stunts
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Toscana Vacation
Posted on Sunday, September 23 @ 22:51:49 CEST by Adam |
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For my official summer vacation this year, which has actually slipped into the fall, I took Ildiko to explore Tuscany. The weather was perfect for the whole trip -- still very summer-like but no longer insanely hot, so we could spend our entire day outside looking at stuff without being forced to take a siesta. All in all we had an amazing time.
We took a train from Zürich to Florence, where we stayed three nights in small mom+pop bed & breakfasts close to the center. Florence is so amazing, we were not able to see even close to everything we wanted, and I was again completely overwhelmed by the city even though it was not my first time there. Though we went for the Renaissance art and architecture, were had ample quantities of Italian ice cream, pizza and pasta to enjoy. And despite being locked together for 24 hours a day, we drove each other crazy just a little -- much better than we had anticipated!
Then I rented a car -- an automatic transmission Mercedes A, started the road trip. We visited San Gimignano, Volterra, and Siena, one day each, again staying in B&Bs, before returning the car to Florence. There I had to saddle over to a manual fiat because of availability constraints -- because I have not driven a manual transmission car for a long time, I was quite nervous about this, especially given the absolutely insane Italian traffic. In the end and with Ildiko's motivation and positive energies, I was able to complete another three day tour through Pisa and Elba (sorry, I only took pictures of the ferry) without any serious incident. Though the smell of the burning clutch was quite potent over the first few hours as I figured out how to properly inch up steep inclines in Florence bumper to bumper traffic. The second exciting bit was on Elba where our car ran out of fuel and refused to start on a remote beach -- in the end the problem was not just gasoline but also magnetic chip key related, but it took quite some time to figure it out. By the end of the long drive and train ride home we were extremely exhausted...but I think we'd go again any day.
Here is our route:
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