Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Tuscan Winter



http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/travel/07tuscany.html?em

If you go: contact Chris and she will pick you up at the Florence or Bologna airport.

We went through Tuscany at the end of 2009 and it was really lovely. I know I posted about the trip previously, but this made me want to reemphasize that visiting Italy in the winter definitely has its benefits. In Cortona, the ticket seller at the museum told us that in the summer he sells more than 2000 tickets a day and these days he sells maybe 40- the baths at the terme we visited for the day in December were pleasantly full - enough to pick up a conversation with a neighbor but also do some laps if you are so inclined (and even I was). It was lovely not to have to battle the crowds.

I also recall that visits to Florence in the summer were hell and I experienced claustraphobia for the first time. However, a visit there one week before Christmas got me striding through the ticket booth at the Uffizi museum solo, while in the summer there can be a thousand people waiting in line.

I feel as though I am trying to sell a visit to friends and family. I am just so happy that after July, I can be a true host.










(Actually, looking back, I see I never posted about the trip. The place we stayed at was beautiful and we look forward to a return visit. The New Year with friends in the Marche was really really nice, even though James sniffed the wine a little too intimately.)

1 comment:

paula said...

Ray is ever so cute, the the little girl is adorable! Still love the picture of the tree-lined horizon for the reasons we talked about before...
love you!