Vinci, home of Leonardo

We decided to save most of the historical city of Florence for our second week and instead take a couple of day trips out to neighboring towns. Our first choice was to visit the birthplace of Leonardo di Vinci. A short train and bus ride brought us to this village in the beautiful Tuscan hills.

Some scenes from the village…

The church where Leonardo was baptized, although remodeled several times since he was born, was open and we walked in. The baptismal font is the one used to baptize Leonardo.

There were a couple of buildings connected to a museum on Leonardo di Vince, but no pictures were allowed inside. You are  only seeing a few things from outside. Inside they had models of many of his drawings and designs. These models were fascinating (the exterior of the museum art only moderately so).

The best model that I could take a photo of…an improved water wheel.

From the top of an old building used to house part of the museum, I took a video of the bells in the old bell tower playing. I planned to post the video (to learn how to do it) but I can’t make it face the right direction. Later…

But the view was wonderful…

You could also go to the house where he was born and where he lived for a few of the years of his early life.

But by far the best part of the day was that his house was three kilometers from the village, and if you didn’t have a car, you had to follow the “green path” which took you through the fields up to the house. Ah, now we were exceedingly happy with what we saw.

 

At the beginning of the road, a nice rock wall with wild flowers….

An olive grow, fashioned after one designed by Leonardo di Vinci…

The green path continues…

The flowers….first, the poppies….

and more wild flowers…

with flowers growing around the olive groves…

and even a few cultivated flowers…

 

and finally the path back to the village again…lovely and interesting day.