“In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
-- Orson Welles
In 2009 as part of a short trip around Europe, I'd visited Italy and had seen the likes of Naples, Pompeii, Rome, and Venice. Thirteen years later I was now returning, this time with my sister in tow, to see some of the places I'd not seen. My sister's last overseas trip had been Croatia and Slovenia where she'd seen a lot of Venetian influence, now she'd get to see a more modern view of Italy.
What had started off as an idea for seeing Milan soon expanded into a week long trip around the Lombardy and Tuscany regions of Italy.
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