We visited a local town, sovacille, to explore a village completely off the tourist route and try a recommended local restaurant. To start we had a plate of the rare local cinta pork products and a massive platter came out!! We immediately thought oops lost in translation the waitress has given us a serve each for €8.50 but no, the entire platter was a single serve starter. We all had pasta to follow, mine fresh fettuccine and porcini mushroom! A little old l...

I did a day tour to the chianti region to taste wine, with a group of 8 girls and one male Italian tour leader who thought girls were hard work. Chianti district is pretty close to Siena, and the countryside is quintessentially tuscan, rolling hills with stone villas on top, surrounded by grapes. The wineries are not as we know them, no grand tasting rooms or public cellar doors. They are all small and private so the tour seemed the best way to meet the winemake...

Today we did a roadtrip to montalcino, a hillside town that has alot of rustic charm and incredible views, as well as being famous for the brunello wine grown in the area. We took the long scenic route, dirt roads and all but were rewarded with artists in fields painting the famous landscapes, and plenty of beautiful scenery. As with all hill towns, we parked and entered on foot, this town had alot of interesting shops selling clothes and shoes and homewares, a...

Ok, so the head was sore and the body was sluggish .... Lesson learned. We had planned to have a quiet day mooching around our farmhouse villa, reading magazines and books and just enjoying life in the slow lane. That's exactly what I did and it was nice to be able to stop for a while. I got to play with a couple of week old kitten with the Italian girl next door and explore the land some more. The photo you see is the dinner I cooked, chicken stuffed with lemon ...

Started the morning early with a walk along the country roads around the villa - the countryside surrounding us is planted with wheat and grapes and poppy flowers are everywhere. The photo is of a newly plowed field down the road, the light is amazing. After a farmhouse breakfast of tomatoes and eggs on toast we went into siena to explore. Siena is a walled gothic city with beautiful marble cathedrals and a huge piazza that they race horses around in September...