Tuscany

Tuscany conjures up an image of rolling hills, ancient mansions, old cities, old churches and vineyards.  It's everyone's favorite part of Italy.  Florence is the capital of Tuscany but to enjoy Tuscany you have to get away from Florence.  There are many beautiful and ancient towns to choose from:  Siena, Lucca, Pisa, Arezzo, San Gimignano, Livorno, etc.  There is not much public transportation options if you want to explore the region so the best way to do it is to rent a car.

Driving in Italy is very different from the US, or other parts of Europe for that matter.  Italians are much more aggressive drivers, especially in bigger cities.  You have to be able to drive a manual transmission, although automatic transmissions are available for a much higher cost.  Not only you have to be able to shift gears, you have to shift without thinking because your speed changes very quickly with the sudden traffic.  You also have to know how to drive through roundabouts, which are almost at every intersection.  At the same time you have to listen carefully to the GPS.

We rented a car from Sixt Car Rental.  We found the rental through a portal called Autoeurope.  After specifying your rental requirements, the website gives you choices from different car rental companies, like Hertz, Avis, etc.  Sixt does business mostly in Europe so it's not well known to Americans.  But I've read that it's a good company.  However, Autoeurope is a money-making company so even though the rate may be reasonable, Autoeurope add on their own charges.  Like many car rentals, it's "caveat emptor" or buyers beware.  Sixt has a booth inside the Florence train station.  It's a big building and it took me some time to find it.

Our plan is to spend 3 days and 3 nights in the Tuscany countryside.  We had a lot of recommendations on where to go.  I finally decided that we'll go to Assisi, Siena and Chianti.  Our first stop is Perugia, not far from Assisi.  Both are actually in Umbria province.  We arrived there in the early afternoon and checked into the Sangallo Palace Hotel.  It's a very nice 4-star hotel at a reasonable rate.  After checking in we headed for old-town Perugia through a series of escalators that took us up to the hilltop.  There were some old buildings and a cathedral (always in Italy) but not much else.  It was a disappointment.  We thought there will be more to see in Perugia.

Old Town Perugia

Restaurants lining old town

We parked our car in the garage a couple of blocks away.  In the morning when we drove to the hotel to pick up our luggage we found the road to the hotel blocked.  We didn't know why but we circled the area a couple of times through winding streets but the police would not let us through.  Eventually we called the hotel to bring our luggage to another street and picked it up from there.  Such is the frustration of driving in Italy.

Our next stop is Assisi, about 30km away.  Assisi is made famous by St. Francis, who left a privileged life to become a priest.  St. Francis started the Franciscan Order.  Much of the town is on a hilltop.  We found a parking lot where we could take the escalator and walked some stairs up to the town.  We could've driven up there but I didn't want the challenge of navigating through some narrow streets.  Many Italians told us that Assisi is their favorite town.  We can see why.  The town has a done a good job of preserving their buildings, especially the churches.  We headed for the Basilica of San Francisco d'Assisi.  Its a beautiful church at the edge of the hilltop.  The grounds were well-maintained and the church itself was also very clean and well-maintained.  Surprisingly, there was no admission charge, except to certain parts of the church.

Tasty looking canoglis

A Restaurant in Assisi

Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi

One of the streets

Looking into the court-yard of the church

Another church closer to the main square

From Assisi we drove to Siena, about an hour away.  The Albergo Cannon d’Oro hotel is supposed to be right in the middle of old town.  That's why I picked it.  It's not a very nice hotel but it's close to where we were going.  However, finding the hotel is a big challenge.  The narrow streets of the old town just goes round and round.  Finding a place to park was a big challenge.  Eventually we found a parking spot we think it's close to the hotel.  We took our stuff and walked about 20 minutes and found Via dei Montanini, one of the main streets in old town.  We checked in and then took a walk through the busy street.  There were many shops, banks, restaurants, etc.  Some are upscale and some are just middle of the road.  We ended in the very big main square, the Piazza del Campo, where there was supposed to be a concert that night. We waited for a long time.  The concert started at about 10pm.  By then we were fairly tired and ready for bed.

Buildings around the main square

Fortress

Duomo or Cathedral, away from the main square

A panoramic view of the main square

In the evening we moved our rental car to a park where the parking is free.  This way we won't have to get up early and put money in the parking meter.  Our next destination is Chianti, the wine region, only about 60 minutes away.  We were going to take SR222 through beautiful vineyards grown on rolling hills.  Five minutes into the highway we were stopped at a roadblock.  We were told that there was a classic car race on highway, which means we'll have to take the country roads and join SR222 north of the section where the race is being held.  Well, that was a bigger challenge that we expected or bargained for.  However, it took us through some of the most beautiful Chianti countryside.

We stopped and posed next to several grapevines.  In September, this is harvest season and the grapes were all riped and bursting with juice.  We picked a few of them and tried them.  They are not sweet like table grapes.  We took a wrong turn onto one of the country roads and ran into 3 women trimming the grape vines.  They told us there were no through roads but they picked some grapes for us to try.  It was so generous of them.

After driving around for 3 hours, with the GPS keep wanting to take us back to SR222, we finally found the part of the highway that is north of where the race was being held.  It was then a short beautiful up and downhill drive to the Albergo Casa Al Sole, a small hotel on the main road.  There are several small towns along the highway and Greve is one of them.

Display of Chianti wines in a wine store

Grapes are ready for harvest

Olives are also common in this region

Beautiful rows of grape vines on rolling hills

Chianti wines are popular all over the world and have been around for a very long time.  I confess that I like Chianti wine but don't know much about it.  In a 2019 article in New York Times, Chianti Classico, Eric Asimov talked about the tastefulness of Chianti.  They are not the cheapest nor the most expensive.  You can get a decent bottle for between US$10 to $20.

In the morning we drove back to Florence, about 30 minutes away, according to the GPS.  As luck have it, we ran into a roadblock as we approach the city center.  It was Sunday and there was a march going on supporting Breast Cancer.  I tried other routes to no avail.  The GPS kept pointing us back to the city center.  Finally I stopped and asked one of the policewomen.  She pointed towards the hill and told me that I can bypass the marching route by going up that hill.  As I drove up the hill I recognized the spot where you can have a bird's eye view of Florence.  I was here on one of my trips with Trafalgar Tours many years ago.  With the maze of streets surrounding the Florence train station it was a miracle that I finally found the right entrance to the garage.  When I returned the car to the desk we only had 10 minutes left before I get charged another hour or even a day.  With 2 hours left before our train depart for Venice I walked quickly to the nearby Central Market and bought some lunch for us.  What a hectic time in Tuscany!