One Last Account About Tuscany

I have decided to post one last time about Tuscany and then move on to, hopefully, post at least once a week about the doings in our everyday lives.

This last day in my post about Italy was just so much fun that I wanted to share it before moving on.

Part of the package from The Hotel Prategiano was to include a horseback ride for Linda and a noonday picnic for the 4 of us at a predetermined beach site along a river about 20 miles from the Hotel. Linda left via horseback at about 8:00 Thursday morning while Christine, Bill and I lounged around the pool until 11:00 or so. We (Christine, Bill and I) loaded into a rickety old V.W. Van along with some other guests and traveled to the designated spot where the
horse backers would meet us. The stable girls and guides set up and prepared the food and a wood cooking fire with the help of the guests and all was ready when the trail riders arrived at the camp. It was a wonderful warm and pleasent day, just right for such an outing. After romping around in the river with the horses we settled in for a great lunch of cooked bore, cheese wine, pasta, fruit, salad and more wine.



After lunch, those who had signed up for a full days ride, saddled up and continued their trail ride. Linda and a few others had signed for only the morning ride, while others choose to ride only in the afternoon. The new riders took the mounts that the morning riders were leaving. The afternoon riders had come on the picnic bus, ("rickety old V.W. Van) and the morning riders, who were done for the day, came back to the hotel with the other non riders.



We took a nap upon our return to the rooms, and then met by the pool for a brief swim before our evening meeting for wine and cheese. What you may have heard about the local wines in the region is probably an understatement. Each evening we had a different wine from the local market in the little village near the hotel, and each evening we were just delighted with the taste of our purchase. None of the wines we had cost more than 2.50 Euros, (about $3.25 American) and were as full of flavor and joy as the most expensive wine we have ever had.

The first time we decided to sit in the evening and have wine and cheese, it was just Christine, Linda, Bill, and I. By weeks end we were sharing our evening treat with about 4 other guest which really made our "cocktail hour" special.

The rest of our days in Tuscany were delightful and spent doing the usual touristy things and sight seeing . We visited several cities in the area such as Pisa, Sienna, Volterra, San Gimignano, Lucca and Florence. We left much undone!

I wouldn't be surprised if, someday, we take this trip again.

Sunday....A Perfect Vacation Day in Tuscany

Sunday would be, in my mind, the ideal vacation day on our trip. We met Bill and Christine for breakfast at 8:00, as we would do through out the week. This was always a buffet with ham, cheese, a variety of cereals, juice, fruit, coffee, tea and bread. After breakfast, Linda went on her first horseback ride of the week, She rode 3 times during the week and enjoyed all 3 rides. The young people (from all over Europe) who were in charge of the equestrian programs were nice, fairly knowledgeable, and always ready to have a good ride. The horses were quite fit and ready to go. Pictures here are of the stables and horses available to the hotel guests. Lynn's ride for this Sunday was to be with the young lady that would serve as her guide, Emma. She was from England and spoke an unusual (to our American ears) dialect of our language. She was a very effervescent young girl with a contagious sense of fun and an equally contagious personality. The ride was through the surrounding hills of our hotel and passed through the middle of the small near by village of Montieri . They got back around noon so we had the afternoon yet to enjoy together.

While Linda was riding, Bill, Christine, and I lounged around the pool reading and resting. It was fairly quiet and very peaceful.

Soon after Lynn got back from her ride, we took off in the car and headed for the town of Follonica. We stopped in the village of Montieri for lunch. We ate some pasta and admired the 300 0r 400 year old room in which we ate. Satisfied with our lunch, off we went to the beach.

The little resort town of Follonica is on the Tyrrhenian Sea at the Golfo di Folloncia. (See the map in a previous post) This city must have served as the model for the whole east coast of Florida on the Gulf of Mexico. Had I been blindfolded on the trip and then un-blindfolded after our arrival, I would have guessed we had somehow been dropped in the town of Naples, Florida. The beach was populated, but not crowded, and the water was quite warm and tranquil, softly lapping at the white sandy beach. Bill and Christine had not expected the water to be quite so inviting, and had not come prepared to swim, but did a little bit of wading. Linda and I had our suits on under our shorts, and managed a little swim. We walked and laid on the beach for awhile and just soaked up the sun.











We were disappointed that we could not find a geleto shop on the beach, but not to miss our daily fix, we drove through the town until we found a little shop that catered to our needs. Sooo good!

The trip home was about an hour and we got back in time to clean up and rest before our dinner.
Bill and Christine left their room earlier than Linda and I, so they stopped and got a bottle of wine and sat out on the yard/patio and watched the sunset.We met in the dinning room at 8:00 and enjoyed our dinner. Lynn and I went to bed, but I believe Bill and Christine enjoyed a cocktail or two in the bar before retiring. Ain't Life Grand!!!




More to follow....

Tuscany ....

After leaving Florance on Saturday morning, we made our way to the city of Siena. This is an old walled city of great beauty about 43 miles from Florence. The focus of our visit this Saturday was the magnificent Piazza del Campo. This 12th century piazza was built around the town civic center building. Forming the perimeter for this center are shops that create a 3/4 circle around a brick paved, fan shaped piazza. While the shops are today a collection of modern tourist shops and restaurants with occupied apartments above the shops, I got the feeling that in previous centuries they were the shopping center for the towns people. Meat shops, clothing stores, cobblers, blacksmiths, produce shops, taverns, etc. Each century probably brought a new generation of tradesmen selling whatever was needed for a town dweller to survive. Siena was the major crossroads for trade routes between France and Rome. Because of that, Siena was a hot bed of Finance and art for most of it's history. The Black Death in the 14th century reduced it's population from 100,000 thousand to 30,000 and the configuration of the city didn't change much thereafter. The Siena of today is pretty much what it was in the early 14th century. The pictures in this post were taken from our firsts day's visit there. We revisited Siena later in the week and spent more time there, but still are left with the feeling that we missed much in the city that must be seen.

Having seen so little of Siena, we still felt the pressure to move on to our Hotel in Montieri. The Hotel Rifugio Prategiano. The Hotel is about 45 minutes to 1 hour from Siena and we arrived at about 3:00 pm. The check in went smoothly, but we were not happy with the size of one of the rooms, so Bill and Christine elected to take another offered down at the pool level that was much more suitable. After settling in our rooms we all met at the pool and just relaxed until dinner. The pool was delightful and sort of a center of activity for most of the guests that afternoon.

Dinner was served between 8:00 and 9:30 each evening , we got together at 8:00 and enjoyed the dinner and wine immensely. Our meals throughout the week were very enjoyable and, as advertised, very much the typical meal eaten by the local farmers of Tuscany.

We were offered salad, 1st and 2nd course, and desert. Each course was offered with 3 separate selections. Either course would have made a complete dinner for most of us so, needless to say, we all over ate each meal. The salad was a simple buffet of fresh lettuce, tomatoes, onions, oil and vinegar. Even though we knew after the first night that we could not possibly eat all our dinner, the salad was so refreshing, that we could not resist. The courses were almost always a pasta with either a meat or sauce, both a meat and sauce or just meat.

Wild Bore is a main stay of the diet in the region, so in one form or another it was offered 2 or 3 times throughout the week. The dessert was very unimaginative each night. A different flavor of pudding each evening. No one was too disappointed because after all that really good food, and a couple bottles of outstanding local wines, paper mache would have served the purpose.

Off to our rooms after dinner and a good nights sleep. The weather was a little on the warm side but not intolerable, the wind rose a little each night and was a little disturbing for Christine, but after a few nights she began using ear plugs and found that they solved the problem. Their room was on the edge of a down slop so the treetops were right outside their window and generated a little too much noise.

It's raining here now so I may tell you of our Sunday adventures latter to day.

Italy....Continued

Our first day in Italy was an overnight stay in Florence. We landed at about noon and picked up our car. Two things of interest were 1) The airport in Florence is surprisingly small One runway and a very small terminal. 2) Rental cars are not necessarily new and all are standard transmissions. Ours was an Alfa Romero diesel with about 125k miles on it We each had one medium large bag that were checked through from Sac to Florence, and a backpack and/or a carry on bag of some sort. The luggage with the 4 of us just fit! (And I do mean "just")

Bill and Christine had brought their European GPS that they had purchased before their 2 month stay in France, Spain, and Scotland in June and July. Should you ever travel to Europe, do not attempt to do so without a GPS. A real time and hassle saver. At the risk of sounding like a worthless tag along, I will admit that without Bill doing all the driving (for the whole trip) and Christine doing all the navigating with the GPS, Lynn and I would probably still be in Italy.

Our overnight in Florence was very pleasant. We were booked at a little hotel, The Hotel Jane, on a small side street in a building that was deceptively modern and comfortable inside. Our parking was right out the front door on the very narrow street and couldn't have been more convenient. We checked in and took a short rest from about 2 till 3 and felt quite refreshed.

Christine had made online reservations for us to visit the Accademia at 4:00 pm. Since driving is so limited in Florence, we took a bus to our destination. The Accademia is where the great Michelangelo's David stands for viewing. It so humbling to be in the same room with such art.You would think that an art moron would be immune to the power of such things, but that is just not the case. I had been within touching distant of a few Rembrandt's and so I was not surprised to be almost in tears at the beauty of such art. Hard to explain, but I know that we are all overwhelmed by such occasions. We spent about 2 hours at the museum, (it house many great sculptures and paintings as well as David, and then left for a short walk to a near by restaurant. We picked one at random and had a satisfying, but not great dinner. I thought we did pretty well for just picking a place at random. After dinner we had our first gelati. We later discovered that even very bad gelati is absolutely wonderful. We then took the bus back to The Hotel Jane and had a badly needed nights sleep.

We were all excited to get going the next day and after a very good breakfast provided at the hotel, we were set to do some brief sightseeing in Florence, then off to Siena and on our way to the Hotel Prategiano in Montieri. We were not scheduled to arrive at the Hotel Prategiano until around 2:00 pm, so our schedule was pretty relaxed.

Before we left Florence, Bill and Christine knew of a special view of the city that they wanted us to see from the parking lot of the Palazzo Pitti. They had been there on a previous bus tour of Florence and knew that it was worth a stop. The pictures here were taken from that parking lot and, as you can see the view is pretty special.









I have other pictures taken in Florence and may decide to publish them in a future post.

More to follow.

The best laid plans.....

Sorry that I haven't followed up with my intentions of expanding the information on our trip to Italy on this blog.



I am helping a handyman rebuild our back porch and find my time from 7 until 5 all used up by the project.



I will get back to the travel log by next week, if the roof doesn't fall on our heads in the meantime.


Sometimes I will include a picture on this blog for no other reason than it is of something that is extraordinarily beautiful.


Such is the case with the picture at right. My Grandson Axel!!!

What a handsome boy he is.

Map of Montieri | Italy Magazine

Map of Montieri Italy Magazine

Italy....the begining

For the benefit of those of you who care to hear something of our recent trip to Tuscany, I hope to post comments and pictures as the mood strikes.


At left is a great picture that we had a fellow visitor take of the 4 of us in Florence as we were on our way to our last meal in Italy. We are standing on the Pointe Vecchio (the oldest bridge in Florence- dates from about 1345) . This photo accurately reflects the joy we have shared on our trip with great friends Bill and Christine Avritt. They had recently taken a tour of Europe with some other friends, Gene and Roselle, and therefore knew more less what we wanted to spend our time doing. What a great advantage they afforded to us. In this photo we had just finished a tour of the Uffizi art museum. As can be said of everything we did in Tuscany, you personally must experience it for yourself to understand what a magnificent place we have been privileged to visit. We, of course, need to return to all of the cities we visited and spend at least a full week in each city: Florence, Siena, Pisa, Lucca, San Gimignano, Volterra, Follonica, and the tiny little town of Montieri .



In this little village was located our main vacation Villa, just out side of the town. The Hotel Rifugio Prategiano is a unbelievably quaint but ,at the same time a modern and restful Inn. (The Picture here at right shows the Main Villa but there were 2 other building at the pool level below the main building that had room accommodation also shown on the far right) We stayed at the Prategiano for 6 nights, seven days. Our breakfast and either lunch or dinner were included and very substantial meals.


Bill and Christine stayed at the pool level while Lynn and I were in the main building on the upper level.

The horse stables were farther down the hill and not easily accessible on foot from above due to the hilly nature of the topography. They encourage physical fitness at this resort. Linda rode 3 of the 7 days and had a great experience indulging in her passion for the sport. Bill, Christine and I relaxed by the pool while she rode on 2 occasions and while she rode one afternoon, the three of us drove to Pisa and Lucca on a sightseeing excursion. She got to see lots of pictures and doesn't feel cheated for missing the drive.

That's it for this instalment. More to follow later.