Vinci – Il Museo Leonardiano di Vinci

This is the town in which Leonardo was born. He was an amazing man - - master sculptor, painter, architect, engineer, inventor, and so on. The museums (in the Palazzina Uzielli and Castello dei Conti Guidi) hold drawings of his inventions and scale models executed from these drawings - - clocks, “machine” guns, spindles and looms, gold-leaf press, machines for construction, and a 1-man “airplane”. I loved the shapes that decorated the surface of the courtyard in front of the museum; each is outlined in small bits of mirror. And I liked the large iconic man in the middle of the world statue of the cliff below. We had a lovely lunch in a tree-shaded patio (I had veggie pizza the Italian way - - very thin crust, little or no tomato sauce, just a touch of cheese, eggplant, peppers) and then got back on the bus. Much as I hate the whole tourist-group-on-a-bus thing, there is no question that I'd never have been able to see so much with so little fuss if I'd tried to do it on my own!