Aug 29 2010
We left Tuscany Saturday morning and are now at our apartment in Rome. We’re staying in a neighborhood called Trastevere which is very active at night with restaurants and bars. Below are two pictures from our window, one at night and the other in the morning when it is really quiet.
– Dave
Aug 27 2010
We spent our last day in Tuscany exploring a hill town that we did not visit in 2008 and that is not visited by most tourists (at least most Americans). A coworker of mine also writes travel guidebooks about Tuscany and Italy and he generously gave me a copy before we left. In his book, he describes a town in southwestern Tuscany called Massa Maritima as an “undiscovered gem” so we decided to check it out. It turned out to be exactly that – very charming and worth a return visit. It’s a very small hill town with the usual picturesque red tile rooftops, great views, steep streets, and cafes tucked away in side alleys. For such a small town, it has a lot of options for places to eat and as we left in late afternoon, lots of cars were passing us in the other direction. The town’s population must expand a lot at night.
The view over the rooftops with the sea in the background.
A typical view down a steep street.
The main square in the old town with the cathedral and campanile.
The cathedral shows a change in architectural style as it was built. The lower part with rounded arches is Romanesque while the upper part with striped marble is Gothic.
The other side of the old square with lots of cafes.
A view down an alleyway with cafes, shops, etc.
– Dave
Aug 26 2010
We spent one of our last days in Tuscany in Montepulciano, one of our favorite hill towns and it didn’t disappoint. The town is very picturesque, not as crowded as some others, offers tasting of local wines, and has plenty of side streets and back alleys to wander. It turned out that the town was preparing for a festival that night and, while sitting at a cafe on the main piazza, we witnessed a group rehearsing a routine that involved lots of drums plus carrying flags and then throwing them high in the air to other members of the group. A very cool thing to watch while we cooled down from the hot sun.
A view from Montepulciano over the surrounding countryside – a very typical view from a Tuscan hill town.
Meredith and me outside the Cantucci Cantine after tasting some wine. I recommend a visit with Adamo who has been making wine for over 50 years.
The group rehearsing their flag routine in the main piazza.
The group throws their flags in the air across the piazza.
More flag waving.
More flag throwing.
Members of one of the local “contradas” emerging from their headquarters in the evening in full costume before heading up to the piazza for the main event.
– Dave
Aug 24 2010
Who doesn’t love Siena?
We spent a really nice day with Dan and Han checking out the sights and walking around town. Some pics below:
One of the buildings on Il Campo, Siena’s main square.
An apartment building with one of the town’s many churches in the background.
The Duomo’s nave and dome.
Detail from the organ in the Duomo.
An original stained glass window from Siena’s Duomo made by a Sienese artist named Duccio in 1288. It’s now in the Duomo Museum, while the church has a copy.
I could spend hours in the small Piccolomini Library, just off the nave of the Duomo. The frescoes around the walls portray the life of Aeneas Piccolomini (1405-1464), who went on to become Pope Pius II. The ceiling is intricately painted with geographic designs and scenes from nature and mythology. There is a statue of the Three Graces in the middle of the room, and lining all the walls below the frescoes are hymnals with illuminated scores of music. This room is fantastic!
- Meredith
Aug 23 2010
Since we are here in Tuscany for a week, our typical plan is to visit a different historic hill town each day. On Sunday, we visited Volterra which was one of our favorites in 2008 but this time was made a little more difficult because they were holding a week-long festival. This made the town very crowded and kept some of the most interesting areas (the central piazza) inaccessible unless you were willing to pay for an expensive ticket. Still, there were plenty of beautiful things to see and we enjoyed walking around the town.
On Monday, we visited San Gimignano, about two miles from our villa. San Gimignano is one of the more famous hill towns because it is quite scenic. Many hill towns still have a medieval tower or two but San Gimignano has the most remaining (13 or so). It is sometimes called the Manhattan of Tuscany due to its skyline. We walked up and down the main streets, explored some smaller side streets, and climbed one of the towers that is still open to the public for some great views.
San Gimignano at sunrise
The view from the top of a tower. San Gimignano’s central piazza with the Tuscan countryside sprawling in the background.
People walking past a cafe in the central piazza.
The two of us on top of the tower.
A view down on to Piazza della Cisterna, one of San Gimignano’s other large squares.
Meredith begins her harrowing descent from the tower (don’t worry – she made it back to solid ground).
San Gimignano at sunrise with the full moon behind it.
– Dave
Aug 22 2010
We’re staying in a villa in Tuscany just outside San Gimignano. We stayed here during our 2008 trip and loved it so much we decided to come back. Last time, because there were only two of us, we had a small apartment that didn’t have much of a view from the window. This time however, with four of us, they put us at the top of the villa and we can see the beautiful countryside in many directions. So you, dear reader, get three pictures today. I present View from our Window #2:
This overlooks the pavilion where the villa serves dinner three times per week.
Vineyards of Vernaccia di San Gimignano, the local white grape variety (yummy!).
Cypress trees and more loveliness.
– Meredith
Aug 21 2010
Here is the view from the window in our hotel in Orbetello where we stayed on Friday night:
– Meredith
Aug 21 2010
On the suggestion of Dave’s co-worker who writes guidebooks for Italy, we decided to check out an area along the Tuscan coast on Friday after arriving on the red-eye (and before starting our villa stay in Tuscany on Saturday). The area is not very well known by American tourists – mostly, Italians go there to get away from us. 
The area is called the Silver Coast, about an hour and a half north of Rome, and has some beautiful hills descending right into the Mediterranean. We stayed in a little town called Orbetello on a spit of land leading out to a peninsula. We did not remotely do this area justice in only one day and night, but we had a nice time. Some pics below:
Looking toward Orbetello.
A windmill on the water at sunrise.
Gorgeous coastline.
This guy is hilarious. But not effective, because we ate gelato elsewhere.
Outside for dinner at a yummy pizzeria.
Fishermen at dawn.
Street scene.
- Meredith
Aug 20 2010
When I rented a car for this trip, I knew I’d need room for four people and I knew I had to allow for a decent amount of luggage since some people would have been traveling already for a week or two and I would have a load of photo gear. At the car rental agency’s web site, I chose the minivan class which showed a picture of a Fiat minivan with the usual caveat phrase “or similar.” When Meredith and I arrived in Rome and went to the rental desk to pick up the car, we waited for what seemed longer than usual and then, instead of the attendant driving up to the desk with our car like he had for the other customers, he handed us a set of keys and said it was parked out side the building. Hmmm. First sign of trouble. We followed his directions down a few levels and out of the building. This is where the phrase “or similar” was stretched a bit. We came out onto a row of large, white mini-buses. This thing was huge and sat 8-10 people:
Il elefante bianco
For a moment I entertained thoughts of driving this around, especially the look that would be on our friends’ faces when we came back to the airport the next day to pick them up in this thing. But Meredith said, “no way” and we headed back up to the desk. The man’s eyes widened and Meredith said, “troppo grande!” We cleared up the confusion and ended up with a VW minivan that was “perfetto” and much more “similar” to the original I had rented.
– Dave