The summer season of 2003 was sweltering throughout Europe. I used to be seven years previous, about to show eight, when my household and two others flew to Italy and settled right into a villa tucked deep within the Tuscan countryside. It was my first journey overseas and the warmth wave made even the air really feel heavy. Our salvation was the pool. My buddy Valentina and I spent hours within the water with pool noodles, inventing video games of seahorses and mermaids.
Trying again, I notice that journey carried so many milestones for me. It was the primary and solely time I left North America till I used to be 13. It was additionally once I found the pure pleasure of Italian delicacies. One night time, the villa’s proprietor ready pizzas within the wood-fired stone oven beneath a cover of stars. I can nonetheless recall the skinny crust with tomatoes blistered by flame and salty, melted mozzarella pooling on the middle. That starlit dinner was greater than a meal—it was the spark that ignited my love for meals and journey.
Making an attempt my first scrumptious chew of pizza from the out of doors wood-fired oven with Valentina and my mother.
In the present day, our Tuscany: La Dolce Vita journey affords vacationers that very same magic—villa stays, winery lunches and the flavors that first sparked my love for Italy.
Siena and Environment
Our villa sat close to Castelfalfi, a medieval hamlet the place I collected shiny snail shells alongside stone paths. Throughout breaks within the warmth, we’d head to close by Siena, which captured my creativeness. We climbed 500 steps up the tower of the Palazzo Pubblico, which provided a panorama of the town beneath. I entered Siena Cathedral, with its placing marble in black and white stripes, to search out works by Michelangelo. Within the streets, I observed particulars that stay etched in reminiscence: historical iron-studded doorways, laundry strung to dry and fish-shaped lanterns hanging above the colourful flags of Siena’s 17 contrade (districts), proudly flown in anticipation of July’s Palio, a centuries-old bareback horse race.
The Piazza del Campo, Siena’s nice shell-shaped sq., unfolded as each gathering place and historical past lesson. Below Medici rule, the piazza grew to become the stage for elaborate festivals and public spectacles just like the Palio, a practice that continues to animate Siena at present. Siena is a UNESCO World Heritage Website, a medieval metropolis preserved virtually intact. That first glimpse planted a seed: in time, it could develop right into a ardour for visiting greater than 100 UNESCO websites all over the world and encourage my cultural anthropology main.
Siena Cathedral rising above medieval homes.
We additionally visited San Gimignano, well-known for its towers—as soon as seventy-two in quantity, fourteen stay. I used to be fascinated to find out how households lived inside them: workshops at road degree, bedrooms above, kitchens on the high the place fireplace hazards had been least harmful. I wandered into the Piazza della Cisterna, the place a fairytale effectively, medieval homes with previous wood shutters and gargoyles perched on church buildings felt like characters in their very own story.
The winding street to our villa.
Birthdays had been celebrated on the villa, olive oil was poured contemporary from the grove exterior and on daily basis provided one other vista of rolling hills punctuated by cypress colonnades. At seven years previous, I didn’t but have the vocabulary to articulate what Tuscany meant to me—one thing alive but historical—however I knew it was particular.
Returning to Tuscany
Twenty years later, in Could 2023, I returned to Tuscany with my husband James and prolonged household. The journey was a part of an extended journey: after a honeymoon exploring the Amalfi Coast and islands of Procida and Capri, we met kinfolk in Liguria, visiting the cliffside cities of Cinque Terre and Portofino, earlier than heading to the Tuscan countryside. Our time in Tuscany was marked by wet skies relatively than summer season warmth. In Florence and San Gimignano, showers turned the streets slick, purplish-blue clouds rising above emerald hills. Rain modified the rhythm of the journey. Vacationers thinned, streets emptied and cities revealed themselves in quieter methods.
From peasant soups cooked slowly in Chianti bottles to Renaissance cathedrals gilded with frescoes, Tuscany embodies continuity. Its UNESCO World Heritage Websites usually are not museums however communities that also pulse with life, every season providing its personal feast. I’ve been fortunate to discover the UNESCO treasures of Florence, Siena, San Gimignano, Pisa and Val d’Orcia—I can’t wait to return to see extra!
Florence: The Cradle of the Renaissance
Florence greeted us with grandeur. The Duomo, with its red-tiled cupola by Brunelleschi, pink, inexperienced and white marble facade and hovering inside, stood as a reminder of the town’s Renaissance genius. We handed the Baptistery, pausing on the gilded Gates of Paradise, and crossed the Ponte Vecchio, its bridge lined with jewelers promoting glittering rings and carved cameos.
Within the Piazza della Signoria, Neptune presided over his fountain, a Roman sea god set amid Renaissance stone, whereas close by the Palazzo Vecchio rose as a reminder of Florence’s devotion to fable, magnificence and civic pleasure.
We ducked into the Mercato Centrale, Florence’s bustling meals corridor, the place I used to be drawn to a childhood favourite—wood-fired Neapolitan pizza—whereas James tried a cannoli crammed with ricotta and candied orange (how may an Italian Jersey boy resist?). Focaccias in infinite varieties lined the stalls. Florence, as at all times, was each a metropolis of artwork and urge for food.
Lucca: A Metropolis Inside Partitions
However it was Lucca that charmed us most. This medieval walled city welcomed us by its tunnels right into a world of towers, church buildings and gardens. On the Basilica of Saints Paolino and Donato, we admired Renaissance element. The Basilica of San Michele rose with its Romanesque facade, whereas close by a statue of Giacomo Puccini reminded us of Lucca’s musical legacy. We tasted the town in its meals: cecina, a crisp chickpea pancake, topped with child zucchini and squash blossoms, together with gelato flavored with lemon and the natural notes of basil. Centuries-old cedar timber stood sentinel over the historic middle, and in a backyard of citrus and roses, we discovered solitude. Lucca was a spot the place magnificence lived not solely in structure however in quiet corners.
With my mother-in-law, father-in-law and brother-in-law at Palazzo Pfanner, a chic Renaissance villa in Lucca courting to the 1660s. In its Baroque backyard stands a statue of Amphitrite, goddess of the ocean and bride of Poseidon, driving a shell-shaped chariot drawn by dolphins.
San Gimignano: Towers within the Rain
In San Gimignano, rain fell steadily, softening the medieval outlines of its fourteen towers. We stepped contained in the Collegiata di Santa Maria Assunta, its Twelfth-century Romanesque inside glowing with frescoes throughout painted ceilings. Later, within the cellar restaurant La Bottega, we warmed ourselves with bowls of ribollita, the hearty bread-and-bean soup that embodies Tuscan peasant custom. My most important course was an ideal cacio e pepe, paired with a glass of Vernaccia di San Gimignano, the white wine for which the city is known.
Once we emerged, umbrellas in hand, the city was practically abandoned. Cats curled up on chairs beneath checkered tablecloths at open-air eating places, watchful from their dry perches, whereas the medieval towers loomed in opposition to the stormy sky like silent sentinels of the feuding households who as soon as measured energy by top. That day, San Gimignano belonged virtually solely to us—a uncommon, wet present.
We additionally visited Pisa, starting with the Piazza del Duomo. Right here stood the Romanesque marble monuments of the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, consecrated in 1118, alongside the Baptistery and the well-known Leaning Tower.
Tuscany, Then and Now
As a toddler, Tuscany in the summertime warmth gave me my first style of journey, household recollections and the joys of discovering meals as a window into tradition. In my 20s, Tuscany within the spring rain gave me new layers—the enjoyment of sharing beloved locations with my husband and lengthy meals with newer relations. The video games within the pool with Valentina and the starlit pizza dinner belonged to childhood, whereas ribollita in a candlelit cellar and quiet walks by rain-drenched alleys belonged to maturity. However each journeys affirmed what Tuscans themselves know effectively: to dwell absolutely is to savor season, place and firm.
On our Tuscany: La Dolce Vita journey, you’ll step into these identical rhythms—tasting custom, wandering Renaissance streets and savoring each season. Tuscany, then and now, stays a land the place the senses intertwine, the place each return is each reminiscence and discovery, and the place each journey is a feast.
2003 images taken by my father, Henry Kautz—2023 images taken by me.
My brother being handed a pizza straight from the villa’s out of doors wood-fired stone oven.
Summer time birthdays on the villa.
Pizza & pasta—the staples of childhood.