God knows what it’s like living in a village like San Gimignano. Every day residents have to cope with a tidal wave of tourists flocking in from Tuscany’s big cities and ports to visit its trademark towers. Yes, they bring business to the shops and cafes and keep people in work but the daily influx…
Tag: Tuscany
Pisa: A one-trick pony?
Some cities are easy to define. Bilbao is the Guggenheim Museum, Jerez is sherry and Pisa is the leaning tower. Ask Mr or Mrs Average to name another reason for visiting any one of them and they’d struggle. That doesn’t mean they don’t have other attractions but while Pisa throbs with tourists, most of them…
Italy: A day out in the Tuscan city of Siena
Famous for its architecture and the terrifying horse race the Palio on the broad Piazza del Campo, Siena heaves with visitors doing the grand tour of Tuscany. I was as keen to visit the city as a recent James Bond movie location as for its history. It’s in the otherwise disappointing Quantum of Solace that Bond, in…
A day out in the village of Fiesole, Tuscany
Florence on a busy day can be bonkers, but we managed to escape the crowds and the stress with a day trip to Fiesole in the nearby Tuscan hills. About 9km from the city, it takes hardly any time to get there on the number 7 bus from the Piazza San Marco. The only aggro we…
In the heart of Tuscany – the city of Florence
It was inevitable that we’d end up in Italy’s most tourist-tastic region one day. Our excuse for the trip to Tuscany was a friend’s wedding in Pisa, but historic Florence was top of our list for a top en route. It turned out to be a city of crowds. Monumental crowds. It was a city…
By the beach: Castiglione della Pescaia, Italy
Tuscany had been tiring. We’d seen the sights and celebrated at a friend’s wedding, so once all the drama was over we needed somewhere to recover. We found it in the seaside town of Castiglione della Pescaia. How different it was from Florence, Siena and Pisa, where armies of holidaymakers had tested my temper to the…