You’ve got a great chance to see the planet George this week in our skies, as it has a very close celestial hug with the best open star cluster in the heavens, the Pleiades star cluster, otherwise known as the “Seven Little Sisters.” In Greek mythology, the seven little sisters are the daughters of Atlas, the banished king of the gods who was pushed out by Zeus and his gang. Not only was Atlas banished he was given a never-ending task of holding up the world. I’m sure you’ve seen paintings of poor Atlas. The new gods had mercy on his daughters and transformed them into the bright star cluster that resembles a tiny Little Dipper.

(Mike Lynch)

The Pleiades jump out at you after evening twilight in the very low east-northeast sky. You can’t miss it. Most people can see six to seven stars with the naked eye but many more with even a small telescope or binoculars. It’s a young group of stars that were all born together out of a giant cloud of hydrogen gas about 100 million years ago. The young stars shine out at you from over 400 light-years away.

If you own a small telescope, direct it at the Pleiades and then slowly pan it to the lower right of the cluster about three and a half to four degrees. That’s roughly the width of three of your fingers held together at arm’s length. Look for a fuzzy bluish-green star. It certainly won’t be very bright but it’ll be the next brightest star to the lower right of the Pleiades. That’s the planet George, 1.7 billion miles from Earth… and that’s the closest George has been in about a year.

Before you think I’ve totally lost my celestial marbles, I have to tell you that planet George was the original name given to the planet we now know as Uranus, the seventh planet out from the sun. Uranus was discovered by the famous German-born British astronomer William Herschel on March 13, 1781. Previous to his discovery, Saturn was considered the most distant planet in our solar system. Herschel was a brilliant mathematician and composer, as well as a brilliant astronomer who constructed over 400 telescopes, including a huge 40-ft. telescope, the biggest one in the world at the time. He was also a very loyal subject of British King George III, so he named his new planet George in the king’s honor. Not only was he fond of  King George, but the monarch provided funding for all of his astronomical adventures. The name George for Herschel’s new planet didn’t fly for too long in the rest of the astronomical world , and eventually, the name of the planet was changed to Uranus, after the Greek god who was the grandfather of Zeus, king of the gods. By the way, the proper pronunciation of Uranus is YOUR-uh-nus, not your-RAIN-nus. When it’s mispronounced, it always gets giggles from at least some school kids.

Uranus is one of the large gaseous giant planets, mainly made up of hydrogen and helium gas, but it also has water, ammonia, and methane, which give it a bluish appearance. It’s over 31,000 miles in diameter, about four times the diameter of Earth. It rotates on its axis much faster than the Earth, once every 17.5 hours, and what’s really weird is that the axis of rotation is tilted on its side. Uranus’s north and south poles are where the equators are on the other planets in our solar system, on the same plane as its orbital path around the sun. By the way, it takes Uranus 84 Earth years to make just one circuit around the sun.

If you’re planning to travel to George anytime soon in a spaceship that has a top speed of 2,000 mph, about the same speed as a fast bullet, it’ll take you just under 103 years to get there!

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and retired broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He is the author of “Stars: a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations,” published by Adventure Publications and available at bookstores and adventurepublications.net. Mike is available for private star parties. You can contact him at mikewlynch@comcast.net.

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As a traveler, I notice new things every time I return to a place.

So when members of the Pioneer Press travel club began advocating for us to return to Tuscany, the destination of our first trip to Europe in 2021, I was happy to oblige.

And I can unequivocally say that Tuscany is as beautiful as I remembered. The medieval walled cities, the wine, the food and the sunshine (oh, the bright, warming Tuscan sunshine!) brought back all the memories.

During those seven gorgeous days in October, I also learned a lot of new things about this region, all while hanging out with the best readers out there, all of whom I’m happy to call friends.

Here’s a rundown of what we did on the tour, which was conducted by Collette Travel.

Lucca

After a late-afternoon arrival and a fabulous welcome dinner at our historic hotel, Grand Hotel Francia and Quirinale in the famous spa town of Montecatini Terme, we all got a solid night of sleep before setting off for this medieval walled city.

Our local guide, a loud and proud Lucca resident, regaled us with the city’s history during a leisurely walk. Lucca began as an Etruscan settlement (nearly 200 years before Christ), was a Roman colony, an independent republic known for its silk trade (a few people on our tour bought beautiful, hand-woven scarves here) and eventually, part of Italy.

The city inside the walls is remarkably well-preserved, and the fully intact wall itself has been ingeniously turned into a 4.2-kilometer walking trail and park system. Doctors of Lucca residents charmingly prescribe wall walks for their patients who might need to lose weight or improve their cardiovascular health, so it’s full of residents and tourists of all ages.

We wandered through the Piazza dell’Anfiteatro, a public square shaped like an oval that was once a Roman amphitheater and marveled at the marble-clad church San Michele in Foro, which was commissioned in 1070. Inside, there are massive works of religious art and also the body of San Divino Armeno, one of Italy’s oldest mummified saints, displayed in a glass coffin on the altar.

After we broke with the group for some free time, my husband and I tackled about a third of the wall walk, then traversed back through the city and stopped at the sidewalk patio of Des Arts wine bar, where we ordered pasta and risotto, both studded with fresh porcini mushrooms, as it was the season for them.

On the way back, we stopped at Fattoria Carmignani, a woman-owned winery, where we took a peek at the vineyards and sampled some of their wines, paired with fun bites like crostini and pumpkin soup with spicy croutons.

Florence

The first time I visited this culturally rich city, it was just after Italy’s doors opened after the pandemic, and it was busy, but nothing too crazy.

Now, it seems, every baby boomer with means from all areas of the world has put Florence (Firenze in Italian) at the top of their to-do list. Locals are fed up, rightfully so, with the hordes of tourists, so much so that Collette no longer takes groups to see David, Michelangelo’s marble masterpiece, as sometimes people waiting in line get spit on or yelled at. I skipped it this time, too, even though some in our group made reservations to go in their free time. As marvelous as he is, if you’ve seen David once, well, you’ve seen him.

Our local guide instead focused on the Duomo, or the Cathedral of Florence, and its massive, ornate green- and pink-marble facade and dome. We craned our necks to see all the marble statues, columns, inlays and mosaics, and wondered at the massive dome. Completed in 1436, it’s still the largest masonry dome in the world.

Funnily enough, our tour did not go inside the cathedral, which is reportedly sparse compared with the outside, which was made as ostentatious as possible to impress foreign investors, most of whom had no interest in actually entering the structure.

Florence is famous for its leather, and four years ago, I bought a purse that I had been using ever since. I treated myself to a new one, knowing it will last me at least another four years, and probably more. Gold is also a huge deal in this city, and a few travelers purchased some quality pieces.

Ed Fleming receives the wine he purchased through a wine window in Florence, Italy. (Jess Fleming / Pioneer Press)

During our free time, my husband and I wandered across the Ponte Vecchio, a stone bridge lined with jewelry stores. As fun as it was to window shop, the walk was worth it if only for the view from the middle, with the reflections of buildings lining the Arno River creating a painting-like photograph and an epic selfie.

The other side of the river from the cathedral and the Uffizi Gallery (the massive art museum in downtown Florence) proved to be much quieter. I wished we had more time to explore, but we did have enough time hit one of the wine windows in the city — tiny portals into a restaurant that are just big enough for, well, a glass of wine. The windows were used during the plague for medieval contactless transactions, which felt a little too close to home just a few years after the COVID pandemic. Still, sipping a crisp white on a quiet street of Florence felt cosmopolitan and cool.

We tried to stop at All’Antico Vinaio for its social-media-famous mortadella sandwich, but the line was way down the block, and we had to meet our group soon. So we wandered a block down and found a slip of a deli that served one of the best sandwiches I’ve ever eaten: mortadella, burrata cheese and a pistachio pesto on spongy focaccia. I have fewer than zero regrets.

As busy as Florence was, this second exploration leads me to believe that I could return on my own and find the quieter parts of the city just as charming as the ones that attract the big crowds.

Montecatini Terme/Montecatini Alto

On my previous visit to Tuscany, we stayed in Montecatini, but I opted to go to Siena instead of taking a tour of this city. This time around, it was on the official agenda rather than an option, and I’m so glad!

Montecatini Terme is a spa town, but not in the way Americans think of a spa — for centuries, people seeking a cure for various ailments have drunk the saline, mineral-rich water, which comes out of the Earth at around 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

The first written record of the spa dates to 1201, but the city wasn’t really established until the end of the 18th century.

In the city’s heyday, celebrities as well as regular people from all over the world came to relax and rejuvenate. There’s even a red brick sidewalk that winds through the city and is inlaid with bronze medallions honoring famous people who have visited. The sidewalk leads to the biggest remaining spa, Terme Tettuccio, so it is an easy way to find your way there.

After a spa treatment, a walk is recommended, so the city is built around a sprawling park with walking trails and benches offering plenty of space for reflection and relaxation.

After the state stopped sponsoring spa treatments — yes, you could even get your hotel stay covered — Montecatini Terme lost some of its luster. Its gorgeous town hall, built in 1914, has a leaky roof that the city can’t pay to fix. There are plenty of empty storefronts and structures, including one of the former spas and its most historic hotel.

But there’s still plenty to love about the city of about 20,000 people. There are excellent restaurants, plenty of shopping and a beautiful town square. These days, tour groups are the lifeblood of the city, many of whom choose Montecatini for its abundance of hotel space and central location within Tuscany.

That night, we took the funicular up to Montacatini Alto, the medieval hilltop city above Montecatini Terme. The view from the top is incredible and worth the nominal fee to get up there. There’s a little square with a handful of shops and restaurants, and if you climb a little further, you can see part of the ancient fortress. We ate at Ristorante La Torre, where my husband and I shared a Bistecca alla Fiorentina, or Florentine steak. It’s a bone-in loin steak from a young heifer, and its beefy flavor is unmatched. Because it’s a very lean cut, it needs to be served fairly rare, so those who don’t like red-inside steak should steer clear.

Pisa

The view from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Tuscany. (Courtesy of Ed Fleming)

Lots of Tuscan residents like to hate on Pisa and its leaning tower, mostly because of the massive amounts of tourists who come for that one picture. You know the one, where they pretend to be pushing the tower into an upright position?

But I do think the heavy marble tower, which was already leaning when it was completed in the 14th century, is striking enough that it’s worth a bucket-list visit. The entire square in which the tower is located is beautiful, too. If you have time, swing into the adjacent cemetery, called Camposanto Monumentale. The sprawling Gothic structure contains medieval frescoes, some of which have been partially washed away by flooding, and others of which have been restored to their original splendor.

Bodies of important townspeople and religious figures are buried below your feet, entombed in the marble that’s so abundant in the area. Roman sarcophagi, which have been emptied of bodies, line the sides of the cemetery, too.

On this trip, my husband and I decided to climb the tower, which is a vertigo-inducing endeavor. The stairways are narrow, and foot traffic flows both ways. The number of tourists going up and down is capped to ensure stability, although modern fortifications should preserve the tower (and its lean) for centuries to come.

For lunch, we followed our tour manager Kim Bizzarri into town to find cecina, a chickpea pancake of sorts, stuffed into a slice of focaccia. It’s hard to believe that the simple, tasty sandwich is actually vegan! And cheap — house-made bread stuffed with fresh, wood-fired cecina at Pizzeria Il Montino was about $3.

Afterward, we headed to a local agritourismo farm for a cooking class. Agritourismo is a program in which people rent out rooms in their farm estates to people looking for a relaxing, pastoral vacation. There were several guests at the farm, lounging in the common areas while we chopped, kneaded and whipped our meal into shape. Many travelers made homemade pasta for the first time! I am an old pro, but was definitely missing my trusty KitchenAid, which makes rolling the dense dough a breeze.

The sunset from an agritourismo in Tuscany, Italy. (Jess Fleming / Pioneer Press)

Nevertheless, we enjoyed an excellent meal with a fiery Tuscan sunset over picturesque vineyards as our backdrop.

Siena

This charming, medieval hilltop city is my favorite of those I’ve visited in Tuscany.

Siena is known for its annual Palio horse race, which has been taking place in the (not as big as you might think) Piazza del Campo town square since the 1600s.

Different contradas, or neighborhoods, sponsor each horse in the race. And each neighborhood is represented by a different animal. Statues, door knockers, baptismal fountains and flags around each contrada let you know where you are.

Each neighborhood also has a museum dedicated to its participation in the race. We toured the museum for the Selva (forest) neighborhood, which is represented by the rhinoceros. (The museums are private, and tours are available by appointment only.)

Race winners get a silk banner, bragging rights, and not much else, but the ornate banners are displayed in the museums, as are the medieval costumes still worn by neighborhood representatives in the ceremonies and parades that happen before the race.

After our tour, we ate at a restaurant on the square, where we watched residents and tourists soak up the sunshine and shared small portions of pici (thick spaghetti) two ways — in a simple garlic-tomato sauce (all’Aglione) that the city is known for and cacio e pepe (cheese and pepper sauce). They were both utterly delicious.

And since we still had a little time, we paid a few Euro to tour the inside of the breathtakingly ornate Siena Cathedral. Its black-and-white striped columns, plaster busts of popes from the 15th and 16th century, mosaic-tiled flooring and intricate marble pulpit are worth every penny. I didn’t get to see the interior last time I visited, and I highly recommend doing so if you have the opportunity.

San Gimignano

Our last day in Tuscany came way too fast.

Luckily, we got to visit a lovely cheese cooperative, where workers and happy cows and other animals live in harmony, and the cheese they make is a fantastic product of both species’ labor.

Our group in San Gimignano, Italy. (Courtesy of Kim Bizzarri)

After our tour, we were treated to a cheese board containing many of the products produced at the farm, from honey to jelly to popped farro and yogurt.

Afterward, we wandered through the quaint, walled fortress city of San Gimignano, which is known for its 14 remaining medieval towers, built in the 12th century by competing families to show off their wealth.

If you climb up to the top of the fortress ruins, you can capture many of the towers in a single photograph, but better yet, you can marvel in a 360-degree view of the stunning Tuscan countryside. After we did so, we descended to a little restaurant next to the town church where we indulged in a carafe of Vernaccia, a crisp white wine grown nearby, and some enchantingly floral saffron risotto topped with crispy, smoky speck ham, two ingredients that are produced nearby.

San Gimignano is known for its art community, and we bought a lovely painting of the city streets from an artist who had set up shop across the street from the restaurant.

Our farewell dinner was at Antica Osteria Toscana in Montecatini Terme, where we were delighted by the house red wine, ribollita (bread soup) and the most melt-in-your-mouth pork chop any of us had ever tasted.

My conclusion? I can’t wait to return to Tuscany for a third time, with or without readers. The food, the wine and the scenery are just that special. If you haven’t been, put it on your bucket list.

Most of our Pioneer Press group at an agritourismo where we took a cooking class. (Courtesy of Dave Olson)

Want to travel with Jess?

We have just a handful of spots left in our tour of Scotland, which runs May 10-19, 2027.

On this 10-day tour, our stops include Edinburgh, Inverness, the Isle of Skye, Glasgow and more. We’ll visit a family-run Highlands farm and check out the sheepdogs at work, marvel at Neolithic ruins on the Orkney Islands, tour a few castles, hear a bagpipe demonstration and, of course, taste that famous Scotch whisky at a local distillery.

For more information, or to book the tour, go to groups.gocollette.com/en-US/link/1371575.

If you have any questions, email me at eat@pioneerpress.com.

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Today is Sunday, Nov. 16, the 320th day of 2025. There are 45 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Nov. 16,1988, Benazir Bhutto was voted prime minister of Pakistan, the first woman elected to lead a Muslim-majority country.

Also on this date:

In 1907, Oklahoma became the 46th state of the union.

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In 1914, the newly created Federal Reserve Banks opened in 12 cities.

In 1973, President Richard Nixon signed the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act into law, authorizing the construction of an 800-mile (1,290-kilometer) oil pipeline from the Alaska North Slope to the port city of Valdez.

In 1982, an agreement was announced in the 57th day of a strike by National Football League players.

In 1989, six Jesuit priests, a housekeeper and her daughter were killed by Salvadoran army troops at the University of Central America José Simeón Cañas in San Salvador, the capital.

In 2001, investigators found a letter addressed to Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont containing anthrax; it was the second letter bearing the deadly germ known to have been sent to Capitol Hill.

In 2001, the first film in the Harry Potter series, “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” (U.S. title: “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”) debuted in theaters around the world.

In 2006, after midterm elections that saw Democrats take control of the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California was nominated by the Democratic caucus to become House speaker. (Pelosi would officially become speaker by House vote the following January, the first woman to serve in the role.)

In 2018, a U.S. official said intelligence officials had concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the October killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

In 2022, NASA resumes lunar exploration 50 years after the end of the fabled Apollo program, rocketing the uncrewed Orion space capsule aloft from the Kennedy Space Center on a 25-day mission to orbit the moon.

Today’s Birthdays:

Actor Miguel Sandoval is 74.
Video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto is 73.
NASCAR Hall of Famer Terry Labonte is 69.
Actor Marg Helgenberger is 67.
Former MLB All-Star pitcher Dwight Gooden is 61.
Jazz singer Diana Krall is 61.
Actor Lisa Bonet is 58.
Actor Martha Plimpton is 55.
Olympic figure skating gold medalist Oksana Baiul (ahk-SAH’-nah by-OOL’) is 48.
Actor Maggie Gyllenhaal (JIHL’-ehn-hahl) is 48.
Actor-comedian Pete Davidson is 32.

MINNEAPOLIS – Gophers men’s basketball fans hoping to be reassured by an expected thrashing of Wisconsin-Green Bay on Saturday night at Williams Arena were likely left a little queasy after Minnesota escaped with a 72-65 overtime victory.

Jaylen Crocker-Johnson, who hadn’t hit on any of his first three three-point shots, drained his fourth attempt of the night from outside the top of the key with 90 seconds remaining in the extra session to put his team up, 66-63. The Colorado State transfer then sank a running one-hander from the right side to push the lead to 68-63 with 50 seconds to play on a night where Minnesota shot 41% from the floor.

“They were constantly changing defenses, something they hadn’t shown and we weren’t prepared for,” said first-year Gophers coach Niko Medved, whose team improved to 3-1 while dropping the Phoenix to 1-4. “But we didn’t let that frustration get to us. We hung in there down the stretch.

“Winning is hard. We’ll take it.”

Gophers senior guard Cade Tyson, a transfer from the University of North Carolina, led the hosts with 27 points, followed by Crocker-Johnson, a junior, with 11 points. Sophomore guard Isaac Asuma scored nine.

“You go through adversity in a season and it came down to a five-minute game and we found a way to get it done,” said Medved, whose team hosts Chicago State (0-4) on Tuesday. “This is going to be great for us, because teams are going to throw a curve ball at you in a season. This is something we’re going to build on.”

Doug Gottlieb, Green Bay’s second-year coach and host of a national radio show, said he got caught with “wonky lineups” late in the second half and during overtime. Sometimes too small and sometimes too big.

“By overtime, kids are exhausted and nobody shot the ball well,” said Gottlieb, whose record with the Phoenix fell to 5-32. “In overtime, it got crazy physical and we didn’t execute and we got thirsty, with too many guys coming towards the ball on offense when what we wanted was to spread (Minnesota) out.”

Minnesota converted 20 of 39 free-throws, leading Medved to joke that he felt he was “in the Twilight Zone” watching players he knows can regularly convert from the charity stripe do otherwise. He added that he was inclined to let Crocker-Johnson continue to shoot from the field, having watched him do it well last season.

“Sometimes the worst thing you can do is try to shoot your way out (of a slump), but I know Jalen will snap out of it,” Medved said. “When the game’s on the line and he was open, he had the guts to step up and knock it down. You can’t play scared.”

The Gophers hit on just 29 percent of their field-goal attempts during the first half but sank six of their first 10 shots from the floor after intermission. They entered the break trailing, 27-23, to a foe that at one point last winter endured a 20-game losing streak and which fell by 19 points at St. Thomas earlier this week.

Minnesota earned its first lead of the second half at 33-32 and five minutes into the stanza. The Gophers fell behind twice more before surging ahead at 46-45 with 6 minutes, 25 seconds remaining in the second half. The game became tied, 54-54, with two minutes remaining in the half.

“I told our guys we’d get a really spirited effort from them,” Medved said, noting that one of the Phoenix players suffered a serious injury against the Tommies and that he expected the player’s teammates to rally around that loss.

Minnesota led, 60-56, with 18 seconds remaining in the second half, but Green Bay’s Preston Ruedinger sank a three-point shot with 12 seconds on the clock. Then, after Tyson hit a free-throw to make Minnesota’s lead 61-59 with 10 seconds to play, Ruedinger made a driving layup with one second remaining to force overtime.

Ruedinger and Marcus Hall led the Phoenix by each scoring 15 points.

“It was a frustrating game, but I think our 11 new guys will settle in and we’re going to be ok going forward,” Medved said. “I’m a process guy. It’s unrealistic to think you’ll jump on teams early all the time.”

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