Vinci

On our last day in Tuscany, we decided to go on a short adventure in the morning, leaving the afternoon for a final stroll around Siena. Since we'd already headed north to San Gimignano and the Chianti region and the men had been south to Montalcino and Montepulciano, we took the advice of another couple staying at our hotel and drove up to Vinci. As in Leonardo da.

The museum fascinated us all with working miniature models of many of Leonardo's inventions. I thought of him as an artist, but these works evidenced a distinct practicality. Each invention had a purpose, created to solve a problem. A book I read on the trip, Leonardo's Swans, described him as a brilliant battle strategist, too.