Tuscany

First stop in Tuscany was Lucca, where we wandered within the walled old town, had lunch and found xmas decorations and a red carpet on the way out..

  

We arrived at our Villa Luce in the little town of Lucolena, in the Chianti region - there were a few teething problems with the villa in winter, including the heating, which took a bit of sorting out but we got there in the end. The kids were delighted to find a huge toad which had sunk to the bottom of the swimming pool!

On the first day, the weather was pretty gloomy so we went to some of the nearby Chianti towns - Greve and Castellini in Chianti - all was pretty quiet in the off season but in Castellini we found a great restaurant & wine label - with lunch voted one of the top meals of the trip so far. We purchased our first few bottles of Chianti Classico, which soon became a bit of a theme of our time in Tuscany.

After talking up the gelato to the kids, it was panic stations when the first few gelaterias we found were all out of gelato...and I started to wonder whether gelato is perhaps only a summer thing. But after lunch, following a tip off from our waitress, we found the most amazing gelateria miraculously open, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, where we all sampled our first cone of 3 flavours. Good times, the gelato was every bit as good as I remember it....

A few villa shots :

 

 

The next day we went to Siena and it happened to be the mercato del campo which is always on the first weekend in December. The markets were awesome, especially the meats & cheeses so we went a bit nuts buying up chorizo, salami, proscuitto and cheese, including pecorino which is the local specialty. 

 

 

Then it was time to climb the Torre del Mangia for an amazing view of the campo and the rooftops of Siena, with the streets all curving around the centre in medieval style.

 

 

  

And fancy that, at the bottom of the tower in the main palazzo, were all the Chianti winemakers doing explanations and wine tastings - we promptly got ourselves a chianti classico wine glasse each and got into it -  after sampling quite a few generous tastings and talking to the winemakers, we rolled out of there laden with quite a few bottles of the local drop

 

 

 

 

The next day we had a late start and then went to the hilltop town of Colle di Val D'elsa, with an immaculately preserved old town and famous for its ancient road (the via Francigena) which runs all the way from Canterbury in England to France and Rome.

 

 

 Then we went on to San Gimignano where the Lumiere sound and light festival was starting at 6pm. We wandered the town and took in the views, then agreed to another gelato.

 

 

  

 

  

As darkness fell we were perfectly positioned in the piazza for drinks and dinner as the light show started. It was very cool - the euros certainly know how to mix it up with awesome tunes & amazing projections, all in an ancient setting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The following day we were late getting to Florence because the power flipped out at the villa, which meant we couldn't get the car out of the garage or the gate. After a caffe latte at our local shop, Elisa the shop lady got her dad to come around who was an electrician and he immediately sorted it out and we were on the road...

In Florence we had lunch, checked out the Duomo, Piazza della Signoria where we had some fun at the loggia....and  had a quick look through the Palazzo Vecchio. 

 

 

 

 

Salone dei Cinquecento

Then it was over to the Ponte Vecchio 

 

 

After that we gazed at some of the designer shops, then found an amazing gelato place in the Piazza della Signoria, and it was happiness all round...

 On the final day, we went to Radda in Chianti and then to lunch at Castello di Verrazzano where we met the owner and of course walked out with a few more bottles of red! Finally it was off to the hotel Villa la Borghetta to the spa which was a great treat to wrap up the Tuscan adventure...

 

 

Zoe says: In Tuscany on our first day we got the first gelato - it was soooo TDF. We could have 3 flavours for one scoop. The lady also gave us a chocolate stick - it was so nice and I pretended that I was smoking with it. The next day we went to Siena, we saw the Christmas markets and went to have a look. We ended up staying there for nearly the whole day. For lunch we got some some sausage & cheese bread, it tasted really nice. After the markets, we went down a street and saw Accessorize - I bought a cool fluffy rainbow pencil. I'm going to use it when I get back to school. We went to a light show - it was so cool, lots of lights were going and music was playing and lots of people were around. 

Amelia says: Tuscany is so spectacular because it has lots of cute little villages  - a great example was the village that we stayed in because it was so small and cosy  but we had lots of problems with our house including a power cut which meant we couldn't go to Florence. Another one is the heating which we got sorted out the second day because we were complaining at them to fix it! Same as the bedding and the shower which was hard for them to handle so we had to go without showering for a day but we got it sorted out. The good news was the hotel gave us a free massage and spa ahhh.. We also went to the markets where mum and dad did wine tasting and we ate donuts mmm.  I got some really comfy ugg boots and a scrapbook from Accessorize. We got a 

hot chocolate from this cafe and i think they misunderstood us because they came out with literally hot runny  chocolate so we ended up having a hot chocolate that was barely drinkable because it was so thick. I love tuscany! 

 Harvey says: Tuscany was an amazing area - I wish I could say the same for the house. It provided us with many issues but it was worth it when mum and dad got a free massage and free entry to the spa for us. My favourite place in Tuscany was Lucca because we wandered around and it was a cool city - I rolled down the hill and got dog poo all over me. We had two stand-out gelatos in Tuscany - the first in Castellini, the second in Florence. Overall, I probably think the second was better because we got three scoops for the price of two and the flavours were really good. I loved San Gimignano's iconic towers.