Tour guide Cindy has kept us busy the last several days with driving tours of beautiful Tuscany, especially the Chianti region of Tuscany.
The Chianti region of Tuscany is the middle of Tuscany and is quite beautiful and highly popular with the tour bus crowd.First stop, Greve-in-Chianti. A small village and little out of the way. Greve is a very, very old city, 2000 BC It has been a famous stopover city for Italians for thousands of years on the route to Rome. Remember in Italy, all roads led to Rome!Wild boar is the local specialty and stores sell products made from wild boar only.Gosh, I miss the French bakery’s. Fair to say, the pursuit of the perfect loaf of bread is over🥲Next, a short drive to San Gimignano.
San Gee, as it is called, has a long history of the usual Italian lore. Wars with neighbors, religious wars, Roman’s, barbarians, plague, then tourists!
Entrance to San GeeIt’s a beautiful city, mainly devoted to tourists now, but a long, long history in this Italian village.It was market day when we visited.Beautiful, and very empty, which is 👍This is the Porchetta trailer. He sells roasted Pork sandwiches which are delicious.Ok, let’s take a longer drive to Volterra. It is very, very old village and sits way, way up in the hills of Chianti.Did I tell you it’s hilly in Tuscany?Volterra is another ancient city that’s now very much for tourists.However, it’s still beautiful.Wow!And, this time of year, very few tourists.The views here are spectacular.😎Old school Italy.New day, a 90 minute drive to Pistoia. It’s not in Chianti, it’s in northern Tuscany.A very famous religious city, the cathedrals are numerous and huge. However, this was flea market day and literally hundreds of stalls filled the streets selling clothes and shoes. It made it harder to see the beautiful and historic city.We carried on as best we could.But we were defeated, so we went to the bakery and drank coffee and ate pastries.The Italian Postal Service at work.
The beauty of Tuscany is the scenery. We’re lucky, we have a car and can see the beautiful hills and villas and painted in Tuscan gold. Tuscany, it’s truly magical.
Trafton’s European Adventure Part Two 