Tuscany, Italy

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Tuscany,Italy

August 17 - 27

After a short stay in Madrid on our return from Morocco we flew to Rome to meet up with our son, daughter in law and grand daughter for a few weeks of travelling in Italy and Southern France. They had enjoyed a week in Italy before our arrival and we spent 2 days in Rome with them exploring and getting to know our grand daughter again.

Our adventure then took us all to Florence and the Tuscany Region of Italy with a short stop in the medieval city of Orvieto on the way. We stayed in a villa near Florence and had a very relaxing week checking out the area and spending time catching up. The villa was a very old farm house on a vineyard and olive grove estate. There is something to be said about walking out your front door and picking fresh, ripe figs from the trees in the yard. This was one of the first big villas in the area and was visited by many famous people over the past few hundred years. ( including Napoleon ) Nice place with a nice pool, a little ways away from the city but not a problem as we had our own vehicle. Our son and daughter in-law left us for 2 days for a short visit on their own to Venice ( isn’t that romantic ?? ) and we spent the days spoiling our grand daughter.

One day all of us spent the day traveling through Tuscany and the Chianti wine country and were very impressed with the whole area including stops in Grieve in Chianti, Siena and a visit to another very old city, San Gimingano. This is another very old city not unlike Orvieto. All in all a very nice day through some spectacular countryside.

After a week in this area we pulled up stakes and moved to a hillside hotel near the region called Cinque Terre ( roughly means 5 Lands ) that is on the Italian Riviera and includes 5 very picturesque small towns built on the hillsides overlooking the sea.
What a beautiful place !! The area is covered by vineyards terraced into the hillsides and each small town claims to have the best wine !!
The towns are basically next to each other with each in its own bay on the sea. We travelled the short distances between towns by boat and train and stopped in each place for a closer look.
This would be must for anyone wanting to spend some time on the Italian coast.

Off tomorrow for a week stay on the French Riviera at a villa apartment in Cannes, France.

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