Tuscan Excursions

Another great bit of news -- I'm signed up for a full-day cooking class just outside of Florence! While I'm learning how to make pasta from scratch, Megan will be on a walking tour through vineyards and fields on a 6,000 acre estate of a renovated Renaissance villa. How cool is that?

I'd read about Accidental Tourist on Fodor's (again, what would I do without that site?) and noticed that it was the least expensive excursion company out of about 10 others that I'd researched. Not only that, but it also looks like the owners are friendly, knowledgeable and accommodating.

My only hesitation in booking these excursions was that we'd miss out on yet another full day in Florence. (Accidental Tourist is from 9:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. on June 21 and Solociccia is 10:45 a.m. - 6 p.m. on June 22, and we're only in Florence for three and a half days.) But after talking it through with Megan, we realized that we can still see everything we want in Florence in the mornings and evenings. This might actually be better for us because we won't have to deal with the mid-day crowds. Neither of us is a museum lover, so we aren't missing out on that, and really, everything we want to see in Florence is outdoors-- the Duomo, Campanile di Giotto, Battistero San Giovanni, Piazza della Signoria and Ponte Vecchio.

I'm sure there will be many other sites we'll see, but I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to take a cooking class in the heart of Italy even if it means missing out on a day of being a Florentine tourist!