{"id":2932,"date":"2014-05-12T10:37:11","date_gmt":"2014-05-12T08:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rickzullo.com\/?p=2932"},"modified":"2017-06-21T19:15:24","modified_gmt":"2017-06-21T17:15:24","slug":"quick-trip-to-tuscany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/quick-trip-to-tuscany\/","title":{"rendered":"A Quick Trip to Tuscany"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"tripThis wasn\u2019t my first trip to Tuscany, but I have to admit that I\u2019ve largely resisted its allures during my time in Italy.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know, maybe it just struck me as too clich\u00e9, chasing the dreams of someone else\u2014Frances Mayes or any of the thousands of other foreigners who fall in love with the pre-packaged fantasy.\u00a0 As I\u2019ve written before, even the word \u201cTuscan,\u201d as an adjective, has acquired a freakish sort of marketing power outside of Italy for everything from furniture design to gated golf communities to lamentable restaurant chains.\u00a0 For these reasons, I\u2019ve been determined to resist its siren song.<\/p>\n

What a stubborn idiot I\u2019ve been.<\/p>\n

Tuscany deserves every bit of its exultations and then some.\u00a0 What\u2019s more, there\u2019s so much to do, see, and eat in this region beyond the well-known stops.\u00a0 Of course, this is Italy in general.\u00a0 I get emails\u00a0every day\u00a0from people trying to plan their perfect Italian vacation, and it\u2019s always a frustrating dilemma to plan an itinerary for a week or two if that\u2019s all you\u2019ll see of Italy in a lifetime.\u00a0 (Admittedly, a good \u201cproblem\u201d to have, but still\u2026)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

However, for purposes of showing what can be accomplished with the right allies on your side, my way-too-brief trip to Tuscany can be viewed as a nice mini-version of the perfect Tuscan experience.\u00a0 The key is to find the balance between appreciating the art and history of Florence and\/or Siena, and indulging in the seductive tranquility of the countryside.<\/p>\n

Florence with a Flair<\/h2>\n

\"a<\/a><\/p>\n

My friend Elena began our tour of Florence<\/a>\u00a0at \u201cground zero,\u201d so to speak.\u00a0 Piazza della Repubblica was the forum area of the first Roman colony\u2014called \u201cFlorentia\u201d\u2014<\/em>founded in 59 BC.\u00a0 The name derives either from the abundance of flowers during the Roman games that were held each May, \u201cludi floreales,\u201d<\/em> or from \u201cfluentia,\u201d <\/em>which might have been related to the abundance of water along the River Arno. \u201cFlorentia\u201d <\/em>turned into \u201cFiorenza\u201d<\/em> in antic medieval Florentine dialect, and nowadays it is Firenze<\/em> in Standard Italian.<\/p>\n

The square has since been completely remade by King Victor Emanuel II, which he declared \u201cThe ancient center of the city \/ restored from age-old squalor \/ to new life,\u201d or so reads the inscription above the triumphal arch which is the gateway into the piazza.\u00a0 I doubt the Tuscans of that time were pleased with his declaration.<\/p>\n

Of course, Florence is the \u201cculla del Rinascimento,\u201d<\/em> the cradle of the Renaissance, and Elena taught me all about the Medici and the great architect Brunelleschi, who designed the awe-inspiring dome of the cathedral.\u00a0 I\u2019ve studied much of this history back in the States, but there\u2019s nothing quite like learning about something\u00a0in situ<\/em> to transform mere textbook information into actual knowledge.\u00a0 Even Elena, a native-born Florentine and enthusiastic scholar of her hometown, never stops learning new things about this impossibly rich history.<\/p>\n

\"trip<\/a><\/p>\n

At the end of the tour, Elena said she had saved a surprise for me\u2014a unique place to visit that most people, even Florentine\u2019s, don\u2019t know about.\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019d tell you about it now, but likewise, I think I\u2019ll save the surprise for a later post about Florence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Something cool to do in Tuscany<\/h2>\n

The next day, I greeted Anna at the train station with a subdued, pre-espresso, \u201cBuongiorno.\u201d After that, I didn\u2019t get another word in edgewise for almost an hour.\u00a0 Anna is a fireball of energy <\/a>and very passionate about her work as a Chianti guide.\u00a0 After about 10 minutes of trying to take notes as she talked, I gave up and decided to just sit back and enjoy the ride.<\/p>\n

And what a beautiful ride it was from Florence into the heart of the Chianti region.\u00a0 In Rome, I always encourage visitors to get out of the city once in a while and see some of the surrounding areas.\u00a0 There are some great sites such as Tivoli, Ostia Antica, and the \u201cCastelli Romani,\u201d which are an easy train ride from the city center.<\/p>\n

Unlike Rome, the surrounding areas of Florence are not as well connected by public transportation.\u00a0 Sure, there\u2019s a bus that goes from the city center to Greve in Chianti.\u00a0 But guess what?\u00a0 Since that\u2019s about the only little Tuscan hilltown easily reached by public \"a<\/a>transport, everybody <\/em>goes there, making it more of a tourist attraction than a living village.\u00a0 Not the off-the-beaten-path spot that we\u2019re all searching for.<\/p>\n

Fortunately Anna knows several little villages that satisfy the curious traveler in search of Tuscan paradise.\u00a0 We visited one of them, San Donato in Poggio, where Anna explained to me how these little villages came to be, as stopping points along the trading route\/pilgrim trail known as the Francigena <\/em>that runs from Canterbury in England all the way to Rome.<\/p>\n

After that, we explored an excavated Etruscan tomb, stopped at a small production winery, and enjoyed an authentic Tuscan lunch.\u00a0 (No, there was no so-called, \u201cChicken Florentine\u201d or \u201cTuscan Salad with Bacon.\u201d)\u00a0 But all of these details will be covered in future posts.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Finding a balance<\/h2>\n

Just yesterday I was chatting with my friends Travis and Pat on their Total\u00a0<\/a>Tuscany podcast<\/a> and I remarked that, between the two of them, they seem to have found the right formula for a trip to Tuscany.\u00a0 Pat likes to immerse himself in the rich history of the area, while Travis prefers to pass the day sitting at an outdoor table with a glass of wine and watching the Tuscan world go by.\u00a0 For me, Tuscany is both of these things, and for your visit to Tuscan to be complete, I believe that it\u2019s important to experience both.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This wasn\u2019t my first trip to Tuscany, but I have to admit that I\u2019ve largely resisted its allures during my time in Italy.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know, maybe it just struck me as too clich\u00e9, chasing the dreams of someone else\u2014Frances Mayes or any of the thousands of other foreigners who fall in love with the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94,211,42],"tags":[384,221,219,220,222,213],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2932"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}