We just got back home from a two months stay in Tuscany. I thought I´d write a little something about it and post some photos. This is going to be a bit of a longer post, so I think I´ll leave the photos and stories about Cinque Terre, Lake Garda, and our train ride from Itay to Finland for another time, and just tell you something about Tuscany for now. If you are interested in how we got there, read on or if not, just enjoy the photos. I try to keep the photos natural so not much photoshopping here. Just click them to see them larger. -T-
The story begins in 2019
Parco Fluviale was park with a walking path along a river, natural pools and cascading waterfalls right next to our place in Colle di Val d´Elsa. Click the photos to see them larger.
To tell the story of how we ended up living in Tuscany for two months we have to go back a couple of years, all the way to the year before covid became a worldwide household name.
A man floating in one of the natural pools of Parco Fluviale.
That year we had decided to travel around our own country, Finland, for a year and were visiting all the Finland´s national parks. Up in Kuusamo, staying in this villa/hotel(ish) we met with a young Italian man. He had come to Kuusamo for some EU volunteer type of thing, and the owner had left him to run the place basically by himself. We were pretty much the only ones there (aside from a one-of-a-kind handyman making some renovations), so we got to talking. He told us Tuscany in the fall is very beautiful and that we should consider seeing it someday. We had been to Italy before, but never to Tuscany, so we put that on our sounds good list.
A quick forward to the year 2021/2022, and we find ourselves thinking about taking a break from our jobs. In Finland you have a chance to take a break from your job to study and the government will support you financially. So, we decided to take a study leave. Both of us took studies that could be completed online, and then it was just a matter of where to first. The first thing that came to my mind was that Italian fellow telling us Tuscany is beautiful in the fall. So, let´s go and see if Italians can be trusted, we thought.
Spoiler alert: The Italian was right
Enjoying the evening sun at the window of our place.
In our heads we had an idea of us living in a country house somewhere in a quiet little village in Tuscan countryside, where we´d walk or maybe bike every now and then to a local store to buy groceries, do some studies online, explore the countryside and, of course, enjoy the local magnificent wines. At the same time we were hoping not to end up living in a tiny one-bedroom flat in a suburb of some big Italian city.
So, I spent the summer mornings checking some Italian apartment rental sites for a good rental place for us. But as the summer went on it came clearer and clearer that a) Italians really want to lease long-term, b) all the places in our budget required having a car and c) we really didn´t know anything about how the rental market in Italy works. So in the end we decided to crank up our budget a bit and decided to rent from AirBnB. Easier and safer for us, we figured.
Still, we had no idea where in Tuscany would we find the beautiful yet easily reachable without a car countryside we were looking for. I had seen some beautiful photos taken from the Siena area, so I thought I´d look for that area. So considering it was pretty much a shot in the dark we had enormous luck as the two places we lived in for two months turned out to be very different from each other but both very nice in their own way.
We spent the first month in a town called Colle di Val d´Elsa. It´s a little town of about 22 000 people. A lovely town with all the needed services nearby. Just what we had hoped for. Colle was actually two different towns. The older part was situated on top of a hill, and the more modern town, where our apartment was, was situated at the bottom of that hill.
That apartment wasn´t available for the second month so we took another from a town called Staggia, only about six kilometers away from Colle. It turned out Staggia was “a bit” smaller. It only has about 2500 inhabitants so it was a change from Colle. But what was missing in services was definitely gained in the beautiful countryside around Staggia. Beautiful walking routes and endless rolling hills of vines.
The old town of Colle di val d´Elsa is situated on top of a hill. I suppose that is what “Colle” means - a hill.
On one of the many walks around Colle di Val d´Elsa. The old city of Colle on the right. This was after some very heavy rains. The only rains we got. Lucky us.
Walking around in the old town of Colle di val d´Elsa.
A drum group jamming in “La Notte Gialla (The Yellow night) celebrations. Colle di val d´Elsa.
A night in Colle.
La notte giallo, The yellow night, Colle di val d´Elsa.
An evening walk in Staggia, our home for the second month
A view from our window in Staggia.
Sunset in Staggia.
I tried to shoot the starry sky but the light pollution from the town reflected from the low hanging clouds. But I liked how it made the sky look.
An evening walk around Staggia.
The late autumn evening sun colors the sky yellow and makes the hills of Tuscany show as layers.
Rolling hills around Staggia.
Traveling around Tuscany
Apart from the late nights it was quite easy to get around by public transport, and every place seemed to be quite close. We did a lot of trips to bigger towns in Tuscany, as well as some trips outside Tuscany. Of all the cities we visited, Siena was my favourite and we ended up going there three times.
The old city of Siena. The cathedral on the right and and the tower “Torre del Mangia”, that is situated on the Piazza del Campo, on the left.
Twice a year a horse race called “il Palio” between the people of city´s different districts is competed around this square called Campo.
Looking up in Siena. For a while I thought I have some serious distortion in my lense, but when visiting this place for the second time I noticed that the left wall is actually built curvy.
Streets of Siena.
Strolling the streets in Siena.
Duomo aka the cathedral of Siena.
It appeared to me that the district where one lives in means a lot for the people of Siena. There´s the horse race, il Palio, where the districts put their best jockeys to compete each other, but when you walk around the city you can also see a lot of flags showing which district you are walking in. On one of our visits we ended up in the middle of a parade celebrating one of the districts. Kids and youngsters dressed up in the colors of that district were playing drums and waving flags.
A parade in Siena.
I can´t really put my finger on what is it that made me like Siena above other bigger cities. Maybe if we´d spent more time in places like Florence and Pisa I´d change my mind. Or maybe I just like smaller cities.
Rooftops of Florence.
Florence.
Florence.
Another town we visited a couple of times was San Gimignano. There is a loop walking trail that goes around the town through the vineyards. Walking and hiking is our cup of tea and we find that a great way to get to know towns, cities and their surroundings.
In the middle ages the competing families of San Gimignano built towers to show off their wealth. Today the towers that stayed up create a very distinctive skyline for the town that stands on top or a hill.
On the walk around San Gimignano.
San Gimignano.
A street musican in San Gimignano.
San Gimignano.
A view from San Gimignano as the sun is about to set.
If someone asks me now what is the first thing that comes to mind when talking about Tuscany, I say the beautiful landscape. The endless rolling hills. Olive groves and vineyards everywhere. And when I say vineyards everywhere, I mean literally everywhere. And our timing was perfect. It wasn´t the holiday high season anymore, so it wasn´t crowded with people. When we arrived the vines were still full of grapes and during our stay it was harvested, so we got to see the change in the landscape.
And the warmth. During the two months we had only one week of rain. Apart from that it was sunny and warm, and even the day before our departure in the beginning of November we were wearing shorts and flip-flops. All and all I would have to say the Italian that we met in Kuusamo knew what he was talking about when he said Tuscany in the fall is beautiful.
As I mentioned earlier, after the two months in Tuscany we headed to Lake Garda and after that took a train ride over the Alps and through Europe to Finland. I try to post another story about that later.
Ok, enough chitchat. Here are some more photos.
Pisa.
Warm but “autumny” in Lucca.
Lucca.
Harvesting the grapes.
Pisa.
Pisa.
Lucca.
After a lot of empirical research I am ready to announce that merengue ice cream is definitely in the top three, when it comes to choosing the best ice cream flavours in the world.
Wine grapes ready to be harvested.
Another very common sight in Tuscany. An olive grove.
A man laying down a net for the olives to drop on.