tailor fountain photo unfinished duomo October 8th The morning dawns cool and foggy…autumn is coming and coming quickly. Below the Duoma dominating the Piazza di Popole. Today we will check out some sights in Todi and with the sun burning through the fog it should be a gorgeous day… Lots of walking today so we…Continue Reading “Todi …our last few days”
October 6th A lovely morning about 17C with a promise to rise to 21C by mid-day. Today is another day trip as we are heading to Civita di Bagnoregio, about an hour southwest of Todi. Nice casual drive with no drama and easy parking. This is another hilltop village but with an interesting twist as…Continue Reading “Todi …day trip to Civita and visit to the Cantina Colle Ciocco”
October 4th A gorgeous sunny fall morning and we hustle to get our stuff together, today we move on to Todi about 160 kilometers south of our current location. Arriving in Todi we are supposed to meet our host at the Perugina Gate which is the entrance point to the Centro Historico and of…Continue Reading “Borgo Tuopina to Todi …onwards to Umbria, a hilltop convent and Assisi”
October 2nd With the return of some better weather, we head out for some more touring of Chianti country, it is beautiful countryside and we are just taking it all in with rather modest objectives… A sunny day and lazy lunch in Panzano in Chianti….it was kind of funny to watch a shimmering black Ferrari…Continue Reading “Borgo di Tuopina …..Arezzo our last day trip with a bonus village”
We wake up to find that after last night’s rain rather than improving the weather has turned worse…so a rain day, no touring just some housekeeping, blogging and planning the next steps. The next few days slowly get better although rather than sunny skies over the vineyards we get clouds and a smattering of rain….Continue Reading “Borgo di Tuopino …Chianti heartland and stunning Siena”
September 27th A nice morning, as we get sorted out, the first order of business is to exit the garage without hurting the car no problems, and we are off, following the very clear instructions from our host. Departing is really quite simple and very quickly we are on the road to the hamlet of …Continue Reading “Florence to Borgo di Tuopina…..a week in Tuscany > Part I”
September 23rd to 27th Our stay in Lucca has been wonderful but now it is time now to visit one of the crown jewels of Italy, Florence. It is a short drive and on the hill above Florence there is a good overlook of what is awaiting us: In Florence it gets a little tense…Continue Reading “Florence…as Mark Twain said, “a city of dreams””
September 24th – 26th An incident-free trip to Lucca mostly via autostrada but also on some minor roads…on the way we passed Carrara. where for centuries marble has been quarried, the pure white “statuario” grade was used for monumental sculpture due to its high tensile strength, in addition, it could take a high gloss polish…Continue Reading “La Spezia to Lucca…. two nights behind the walls”
September 20th Today is a blue sky day and we are heading to Portovenere by car which is about 45 minutes away…. no issues en route car is parked and we stroll the promenade which is very pretty. The village is situated on the Gulf of La Spezia, more romantically known as the Gulf of…Continue Reading “La Spezia …a day trip to Portovenere”
September 18th The morning is cool and cloudy with the possibility of rain, we hustle down to the train station tickets in hand, and are on our way on the 08:15 train to Vernazza….as you can see the station is empty … We wind our way through the village and are climbing above the village…Continue Reading “La Spezia … Vernazza to Monterossa hike, train to Riomaggiore and Manarola”