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Italy is always a popular destination and Tuscany is a marvelous place to begin. The colors and shapes of the landscape just a few miles from the airport make you know that this is a romantic place.
We stayed in the Hill town of Cortona, made famous by the popular novel Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes. Believe me, hill town is an appropriate name! The town starts at the top of a steep incline and goes up from there. The streets, of course, were designed long before automobiles, so even small cars are restricted to one way streets and slow travel, if allowed at all. One knows why the majority of residents are slim and that the vigorous old men climbing up the steps with a grocery bag will live long and health lives.
Going at the beginning of the ”off season” has its rewards.
On our tour of Florence and the Uffizi, we were not among the crowd of tourists and could get a long view of David by Michelangelo. You can see how empty the square near the entrance was at mid day.
During the salt wars of the 16th century the Perugians refused to pay the Pope’s tax on salt and to this day, Perugians bake saltless bread – crisp, no butter, to dip into the local wine.
At Assisi, the remains and works of St. Francis and of St. Claire are highly revered by the many pilgrims who visit the sites.
Sienna was a most interesting attraction with its beautiful and ancient town square shaped like an amphitheater. Several of the group extended the stay in Italy with a visit to Rome. We stayed at the luxurious First Class Ambasciatori Palace Hotel on Via Veneto in the center of Rome and saw more in three days than one would expect to see in a full week.
How fulfilling it is to walk in the footsteps of the Romans and to see what still remains of the once glorious city. As you can see, wining and dining are among our favorite pastimes and the service was extraordinary.
For immersion in history, art, beautiful scenery, and architecture, one cannot find fault with a trip to Italy.
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Each
day at our hotel dining room we filled up on local produce and
homemade pasta served with local wines. One day, we were
treated to a lesson in making our own gnocchi. We saw the care
and aging of fine wines at the vineyard at Montepulciano, then
toured the ancient city of Perugia, where apartments were once
created by filling the space under the coliseum with small dark
places for the poor to inhabit.
