Tuscany without a plan
 

Herself and I are off to Tuscany tomorrow morning: fly from Dublin to Bologna; pick up car; drive to agriturismo accommodation near Florence; stay one week, then reverse the journey. That's the entire programme.

We'll probably visit Florence and a few other places. I think it likely that we will enjoy ourselves.

If I find Wifi and time, I'll let you know how we are getting on.

Have fun.

Thanks, mamcalice. I suppose we really do have a plan, but not a very elaborate one: to do exactly as you suggest, and have fun.

padraig, wishing you a week of wonderful weather ;;) Deborah

But what are you going to wear?

And is Tuscany worth it?

The weather forecast suggests a thunderstorm on Sunday, followed by reasonably good weather.

I plan to wear my own clothes, which means unsmart casual. No way will I blend in with the locals, because my hair is generally unkempt. The socks I am packing to wear with my sandals are not black, so they won't take me for a German. We might speak Gaelic, and confuse them thoroughly.

Of course Tuscany is worth it: either we will enjoy visiting, or we will have a very satisfying grumbling session. I might post warnings like "Avoid Arezzo: I was served stale coffee there".

have a great trip, Padraig!

do let us know how you get on with this most unfodorite unplanned approach!

So we got here. I can't, at the moment, tell you where, because the name of the place has more than two syllables, and I have had several glasses of wine. But it's nice, and it's near Florence.

We are sitting on a terrace, looking at the moon, drinking our post-prandial coffee and tea, accompanied by the chirping of whatever insects chirp loudly on summer evenings.

We have no maps, and we are in unfamiliar territory. This could become interesting.

One of our funnest vacations ever involved picking up a car in Florence and driving through Tuscany for a week with absolutely no plans except to drop the car off at the Rome airport in time for our return flight. Every night we got out the map and decided where to go the next day, usually planning to arrive in our destination city by early afternoon in order to find a hotel we liked. Lots of tiny winding roads, lovely little villages, good wine, good food, and great adventures! Have fun (but you really should try to pick up a map)!

So we got here. I can't, at the moment, tell you where, because the name of the place has more than two syllables, and I have had several glasses of wine. But it's nice, and it's near Florence.

We are sitting on a terrace, looking at the moon, drinking our post-prandial coffee and tea, accompanied by the chirping of whatever insects chirp loudly on summer evenings.>>

jealous? me? it sounds idyllic, even if you can't pronounce it.

keep it coming!

Next Saturday we'll be hopefully kicked back in our villa in Florence and resting up from the rigours of a flight from Brisbane.
However we DO have a plan - best little rooms in much researched villages between Florence and Rome, booked and the car organised too.
Just a different way of doing it matched to the presumed circumstances.
From Rome (2 days in a big city is enough thank you!)we fly direct to Rhodes island then a ferry across to Turkey and two weeks of wandering up the Aegean Coast where I feel the "just wander as it happens" approach will suit - in Early October anyway.
Might compare notes on these techniques if you are keen....

Sounds perfectly rational as long as you have either a decent guidebook or online access to check opening days/hours etc. (I never understand the people that plan every hour and every meal in advance - it seems more like the D Day invasion than a vacation.)

Glad you made it to Tuscany, and I look forward to reading your posts.

I love it!! Keep it coming on!

I (over)plan, but (he says, hastily defending himself!) I don't prebook anything, nor do I take a copy of my plan(s) with me. (Note the plural - I do several alternate plans, which would be too confusing; maybe that's why I don't take them with me).

The good thing about this is that there's a structure in my head but it's not so fixed that I feel bound by it. Every day is like a new discovery, interspersed with wonderful moments of revelation along the lines of "Hey, I remember reading about this place...it was on my itinerary anyway." At which point memories of what to do and see there will come flooding back to me.

How did such an idiosyncratic approach ever get started, I hear you ask? My first overseas trip - 3 months spanning from Ireland to Turkey - was planned very meticulously. And then, for various reasons (work and financial, mainly) the trip didn't happen. A whole year later, a window of opportunity presented itself and we took off - too suddenly to re-plan or revisit my old plans (even if I could have found them). We had no choice but to wing it. And it was just as I described above - new discoveries (the Turkey part hadn't been in my original plan at all) interspersed with great moments of recognition.

We are in Fattoria di Castiglionchio, near Rosano, about 20 km. from Florence. It's self-catering accommodation, and we have no food, so target #1 is to do some shopping. I hope that the Italians are more relaxed about Sunday trading than the Germans, or we will be in some bother (it's okay: we have just been told that the shop in Rosano will be open until 1 p.m.).

We are not impossibly far from Arezzo, and I am told that it is worth seeing. So we may go there. That, and Florence, and a bit of lazing about: the week is beginning to look fairly full already. I know some people here rate Firenze very high, but a third city might be too much.

Well, already Padraig you've gone to the wrong part of Tuscany. It's not the part with the cypress trees. It seems like you are headed further in the wrong direction, unless you are teasing us and actually are going to San Gimignano. (I don't know where you got the idea Arezzo is worth visiting. I never hear anybody talking about it. If you have a guidebook, it must be very old.)

A day trip to Florence plus a day trip to Firenze would definitely be overkill, unless you are one of those "museum-types". It would be a shame to go all the way to Tuscany and miss the whole point of being there. So do the following:

Immediately leave where you are staying (sounds like some kind of farm) and book a 3* star hotel in Siena so you have a hotel desk that can give you a wake up call for no later than 7:00 am. Get in your car and take and drive the N2 to Montepulciano, and then take the N146 west to Pienza. When you pass the large white domed church of San Biagio, you will want to take out your camera because this is one of the most photographed sites in Tuscany, so you must take a picture too. But DO NOT take a picture now. Come back later in the day when the sun is also shining on the village behind it. That way, your picture will look more like everybody else's.

Hurry on to find parking and get inside Pienza by 9:30am, no later. You will be back over this route later in the day and the sun will be in a better position for admiring the scenery. No matter where you park, enter Pienza through Porta al Murello, because then you can pick up a lockstep walking tour of Pienza in English so you don't discover anything on your own. Pick up some lunch provisions because you are going have a picnic in San Antimo.

After spending 1.5 hrs in Pienza, go to San Quirico. DO NOT ENTER THE TOWN. Instead, drive into the parking lot behind the Taverna del Barbarossa restaurant. Park the car, get out WITH YOUR CAMERA and you will see another of the most photographed sites in Tuscany. It is on every coffee table book in America. The Italian post office has it on its walls. Hell, take TWO pictures of it.

Get back in your car, take the N2 toward Montalcino. Keep the village to your right at all times. DO NOT MOVE FREELY ABOUT. You should arrive in Montalcino at 11:30. Park and shop.

After 1 hour and 20 minutes, return to your car, lock your purchases in your trunk and follow
your map to Sant' Antimo Abbey. You may now eat, but you should leave Sant' Antimo about 2:00 or earlier. Take the road south-east of the abbey, toward Monte Amiata. At Ost. Ansidonia, turn left (north-east) to Castiglione d' Orcia. NOW go to San Quirico. You should get to San Quirico about 2:30 - 3:00.

Take pictures in San Quirico but get back on the N2 so you can get off it at Torrenieri. Go south across the railroad track (watch out for trains!) turn right in front of a church (they all look alike!), drive slowly along the dirt road (hope it's not raining!) to the dead end.

This dead end is your destination, the ultimate experience of Tuscany for tourists and the whole point of your trip. Look at your watch and consider what time it is. You should be at this point around 3:30 or earlier. If you didn't follow my instructions exactly, go home, get up at 7am the next day, and try again. If you did everything like you were supposed to do, you have time for more shopping in one of the cute Renaissance towns. Or you can take more pictures of cypress trees.

You'll thank me for this!

If you are rather near to Arezzo you must visit the Pregnant Madonna in Monterchi! She is definitely "worth it."

Hee hee zepole, fell about laughing at your comments!!
Thank you #;)

zeppole - has anyone ever told you that there is a point when irony slips into cruelty?

Padraig - you're doing fine; you might just want to check on what the italians call Florence, though.

Oh dear. So we are doing things wrong.

I can't fix it now, because we still have no map. The local shop that is open on Sundays does a nifty range of foodstuffs, but lacks the necessary focus on catering for the needs of tourists. Even their efforts at speaking English are of limited efficacy (but the young man in the shop enthused greatly about Connemara).

Anyway, we are back at base considering lunch.

The weather forecast mentioned storms for today, and there is that type of heaviness that causes one to wish for thunder and lightning to discharge it.

Cypress trees? Don't see any here. Poplars, yes.

I think we have to scrub Florence from the programme. We can't find any signposting to it. We'll try Firenze instead.

Padraig, if you do go into Florence and want to see something wonderful but not filled with your fellow travellers, go to the San Marco monastery to see the Fra Angelico frescos in the cells. It is in the square the buses converge on and is only open in the mornings. I failed to do this during my last visit and regret it as it's near the top of my list of favourites.

Padraig - i second St. Marco. we too missed it the first and 2nd times round, but this last time, i made a bee-line for it first thing one morning, and it was great to be able to wonder round without anyone else being there. it opens at about 8.45 am, and closes at about 1pm, BTW, which was why we kept missing it.

Actually, there are cypress trees here, so we can't be that far astray. I'm also looking at vineyards, so it could be a good place to have gone astray.

I like the idea of a pregnant madonna; she'll make a nice complement to the sexy madonna I saw in Venice.

Don't overtip

I was so overwhelmed with idea that I might have got things wrong that I lay down for a little while, and fell asleep. When I came to, I went outside and picked a peach. That made me feel better.

I now have a beer, and herself has an orange juice (too early in her day for drink without food). Tipped the barmaid 30c, a finely-gauged extravagance. She smiled.

Tomorrow we might do something, or go somewhere.

You may dare to eat a peach and enjoy life and Italy on your terms. Please keep it coming!

....but do not forget...Americans have no concept of irony!

I don't understand irony, either.

We didn't get a map today. The few places in the local town (Pontassieve) that sell maps were either sold out, or closed when we tried.

We did decide to make things easy, and use the train to get to Firenze and to Arezzo. But we learned that the trains to Arezzo will not be running tomorrow, and the museums in Firenze will be shut. Strikes - it's like being in France. We might be forced to slow down our programme.

Lunch today in a local restaurant. Menu in Italian only; waitress spoke no English. She asked the room for help, and a young woman at an adjacent table volunteered a translation service. She left, expressing a wish that we enjoyed our lunch, before the dessert stage - so we had no dessert. We could have sought gelati, but we had no idea which was the best gelateria in Pontassieve, so we passed.

Hmm, curious minds definitely want to know more about your lunch. Was it a true authentic Tuscan fare? Did you tip according to the smart Fodorite standard? Did the waiter try to cheat you on the bill?

We might be forced to slow down our programme.>>

lol Padraig - how will you notice?

sorry you missed your gelato. wouldn't it have been fun to try them all?

I'm not sure anyway that english translations on the menu would have helped. at the very local restaurant I ate at in Florence [or was that Firenze, I forget] one dish was described as "cut, with rocket". it turned out to be slices of rare steak on a bed of rocket, but really, I was expecting almost anything.

I'm sitting on my own on a terrace in the moonlight. There is a large oak tree with a very wide spread reaching over me. Movement in the tree, and some strange vocalisations. So I googled and found some squirrel sounds. That's what's up there overhead. He went quiet for a while after I played the sounds down here.

I should be doing stuff.

I should be doing stuff.>>

you are.

Sounds like Padraig has been to Firenze and Tuscany many times before. Plus no doubt a cheap flight from Dublin enables the carefree attitude about a winging it.

Enjoy!

You could declare yourself on strike too....that would show those pesky Italians! Oh....you are on strike.

Fear not, we leave Brisbane tomorrow to rush to the delights of Firenze...well if sitting on your bum for two days in an aluminium tube is rushing...hope the good Emirates hosties are not overates.
Hang in.

Padraig, your idea of a week's holiday sounds like bliss. Less is more...quality over quantity...or something like that.

Enjoy!!!!!!!

"and I have had several glasses of wine."

Then you are in the right place, wherever it is.

((H))

I forgot to tell you that there was a wedding here yesterday, in the small XIIc church right beside our accommodation. Norwegians. A party of about 45 of them. Dressed formally in the Tuscan heat (men's formality is particularly challenging on hot days - father of the bride in morning suit). The music for the ceremony sounded great; the Norwegian drinking songs afterwards less so.

We haven't yet decided what we will do today. The default option is nothing.

[There are a few Norwegians about, some looking quite hungover; others remarkably fresh.]

We have decided on Fiesole. The guidebook says it takes half a day to do it justice. With the museums closed, it looks like it might be worth a day to us.

good choice, Padraig. definitely 3/4 of a day, anyway.

hope you find the museum in the crypt of the monastery - fascinating.

The sound of the town is also sweet: "fee AYE so lay"

Perhaps you are there now? Hope the view is/was not misty.