Discover Tuscany’s Blog: exploring Tuscany and all its hidden corners…

A not-to be-missed exhibit currently in Florence is without a doubt the one dedicated to Rafael’s famous painting, the Madonna del Cardellino, which after years of restoration has returned to shine more beautiful than ever.
On a recent day we went to Palazzo Medici Riccardi which is just a stone’s throw from the Cathedral and where the painting is on exhibition after a demanding period of restoration as it awaits to be relocated to the Uffizi Gallery.

The Madonna del Cardellino is not the only work on display in this exhibition, in fact, there are four additional works from the same period (early 500’s): The “Gravida” (attributed to Raphael), the “Monk” (from the Florentine school) and the interesting table that covered this painting and a characteristic glass terracotta by Girolamo della Robbia, “The Madonna, Child and Saint John.”

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Christmas in always is a very festive affair! This year, however, the holiday season in Florence seems a bit less bright, a tad less colorful than it usually is. It might be due to the current international economic crisis that discourages too much gift shopping on everyone’s part, as many worry about losing their jobs and what the new year will bring. This also seems to be the case for tourists, as there seems to be less people in general in the historical center when this period generally means lots of crowds.

Continue reading about Christmas in Florence »

About a week ago, the New York Times (http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/travel/30Florence.html ) had an article on Florence. It was interesting because it takes a literary classic, E.M. Forster’s “A Room With a View”, as the central point from which to compare the experience of visiting Florence, how it was back then and how it would be now. The author and books editor of The New York Observer, Adam Begly, goes back and forth between what Lucy experienced over a century ago in Forster’s classic and what a visitor sees and experiences in Florence today.

Continue reading about visiting Florence »

If you were in downtown Florence in the area around the Duomo or Piazza della Signoria this past Saturday afternoon, you likely encountered a parade in historical costume, drums, flag throwers and even a cannon! This procession went from the Palagio di Parte Guelfa to the Duomo to meet a large cart full of wine bottles before continuing on to Piazza della Signoria. If you saw all of this you might also have wondered what exactly was going on. What you witnessed is the welcome by Florence of the “carro matto” (crazy cart) from the nearby wine producing town of Rufina!

Continue reading about the Carro Matto in Florence »

Have you ever heard about Geocaching?
We hadn’t until a good friend of ours told us about it a few months ago, knowing how much we love to go hiking and discovering new places.
So we found out that Geocaching is a treasure hunt game played all around the world by a huge community of people. The goal is to hide and search for treasures (hidden in containers called caches) knowing only the coordinates. With the help of a GPS, every participant searches for the caches hidden by others, takes the treasure inside and leaves a similar treasure in exchange. Each cache has a logbook which you can sign so others know who else has found the treasure and, if you take a photo of you with the treasure, you can share it with the community.

Continue Reading about Geocaching in Florence

All over Italy local laws have sprung up prohibiting one thing or another, and the risk is taking home a hefty fine as a souvenir

It is well known that Italians are specialists in making laws and rules (and, unfortunately, just as good in not respecting them). So when the Berlusconi government gave the go-ahead to town mayors to create local laws to face the so-called “security emergency”, these didn’t wait to be told twice! In many cities in the Bel Paese, a series of new rules and regulations have been approved and anyone coming to vacation in Italy will do well to know about some of them, especially since many of these regard common behaviors such as eating a sandwich or taking a nap, feeding pigeons or getting a massage on the beach. The Independent in a recent article pokes fun of Italians and put tourists on guard with this article: “Tourists Beware: If it is fun, Italy has a law against it“. Tuscany is no exception. On some of our beaches it is now against the law to have an improvised massage often offered by immigrant masseuses to sunbathers. On a few beaches, there are even bans against “beach” activities such as beach soccer and racketball and even sandcastles!

Read more on the summer of bans

Last night we joined over 35,000 Fiorentina fans at the Artemio Franchi stadium in Florence to cheer the Viola team as they battled the Slavia Prague in the first leg of the Champion’s League qualifier. It was a good match, Fiorentina dominated the field throughout the entire game and won the match 2-0 which places the team in a favorable position to win the tie match on the 27th of August and move forward into the exciting group stages of the European contest.

Read more details of the Fiorentina-Slavia match »