Good Food and Views are Worth the Journey
Two of central Tuscany's most popular visits are to Siena and San Gimignano. Both are walled cities with unique landmarks including San Gimignano's towers and Siena's striped cathedral and famous town square. Both are also cities that peaked during the middle ages and which eventually came under Florentine control during the Renaissance.
While we could easily spend more than a day in each city, especially Siena, we dropped in on San Gimignano in the morning and went onto...
There is good reason that central Tuscany is on most travel bucket lists - it's almost a perfect combination of history, culture, food and scenery. Pienza, noted to be the "ideal" renaissance city, is not as well visited as Florence or Siena but I think is worth a trip especially to spend time roaming and driving through the surrounding Val d'Orcia which contain so many iconic Tuscan scenes.
I was here last year in May and unfortunately my trip coincided with a long weekend in...
Florence had been one of my favourite cities in Europe for its great art, history and of course, shopping, but it is getting impossible to roam around these days without encountering crowds of tourists. This does make having a pleasant trip more challenging so I highly recommend that visitors who want to visit the museums and other historical sites to do so with a guide. I arranged a private tour to visit the Vasari Corridor, a secret Medici passageway while in Florence last year and it...
I've long been obsessed with getting photos of the idyllic Tuscan countryside - you know, the ones with the rolling hills and cypress tress. So last year in May, 14 of us friends and family stayed in La Bandita, a converted farmhouse on a hill between Pienza and Chianchiano Terme. Although the drive up and down the hill to La Bandita took a bit of getting used to, the place was really well located to explore central Tuscany. And best of all, the food at La Bandita, cooked on the spot by a...
There is a lot of good wine in Tuscany and I had a memorable visit to Carpineto winery this past April. The Montalcino and Montepulciano areas are home to the Brunello di Montalcino and Vino Nobile Montepulciano, red wines that have gained prominence over the past decade. While a prior trip last year included visits to Brunello specialists Casanova di Neri and Poggio di Sotto, a visit to a large producer like Carpineto gave us a chance to try the winery's broader region products including a...