Tuscany, Italia- Part 2

Our trip to Tuscany began with a beautiful bus journey from Florence to San Gimignano, Tuscany. Tuscany's heart are the vineyards and olive groves, which are more charming than we expected in the winter season (it is really warm for us). Tuscan people are even more captivating than its landscape. San Gimignano is a quaint village in Tuscany that use to have over 100 towers during the medieval time period. Currently, it only has 18 towers. San Gimignano rose from an ancient etruscan settlement around a seventh century parish and a castle gave to the Volterra’s episcope in 929; during the XII century became a city-republic. Its first walls were born in 998, when San Gimignano became a business center. While we were in San Gimignano we decided to stay at a bed and breakfast farm (agritourismo) on the outskirts of town. We first wanted to rent Vespas to go the bed and breakfast however, the rental shop was closed for lunch, which commonly in Italy means the entire afternoon until about 4pm...plus we looked at the prices and they were outrageous since they were the only shop in town. So we decided to hop into a taxi and go. When we arrived at our bed and breakfast we were greeted by our host and she informed us that we were the only guest staying there for the night. We asked our host what time dinner was served and she also informed us that they do not cook dinner for guests in the off season (not mentioned on the website of course).

However, she has a plan. She pointed at a town miles away from the house that we could see in the distance from our hillside bed and breakfast. She said we would find dinner down there and we could walk it. To our amazement, she thought this was a brilliant idea. Of course as we were walking on a windy road in the unknown hillsides of Tuscany with no shoulder, we thought different. This proved to be a great adventure that led to a wonderful dinner and a late night plea for a taxi back to the bed and breakfast that Monica had to negotiate the price in her best Italian effort. While traveling in Italy, every naive tourist needs a bit of grease in order to glide through each sticky situation, as there is no shortage of them. Thus, the words of our generous tuscan restauranteur echoed inside of our heads, 'It's not Tuscan cuisine without olive oil." Indeed there was no shortage of olive oil too. The next morning we arose to a beautiful sunrise and walked back into that same town miles away to take a train back to Florence. Here are some glimpses of this romantic region...

The Town we walked to in Tuscany, starting the trail through the olive groves...



Our Tuscany Agritourismo...









San Gimignano, Tuscany....