Quintessentially Italy

If the soul of Italy has a place it calls home, it must be somewhere in the rolling hills of the Tuscan countryside. Perhaps in an agriturismo where Tuscan farmers open their homes and tables to visitors, among the grape vines in the vineyards that dot the countryside, or within the city walls of one of the ancient hilltop towns. 

Tuscany seems to epitomize all of the features that make Italy such a beloved land and give it a special place in the hearts and dreams of so many – even those who can’t trace their lineage back to Marcus Aurelius. The lovely pastoral settings, the sweep of thousands of years of history, the gorgeous duomos or cathedrals, the love of food and the intense devotion put into preparing it, the glorious locally grown and bottled wines – somehow, Tuscans seem to make life itself into an art form.

Of course, speaking of art, Tuscany has been the cradle of some of the world’s greatest masterpieces and was the spiritual home of the Italian Renaissance. Much of the output of the old masters such as Michelangelo, adding up to a serious slice of the world’s artistic heritage, resides, preserved almost miraculously in Florence, Tuscany’s capital. We will take a closer look at the glories and treasures of Florence in their own installment of our tour, but for now, we want to venture outside the big city and explore some of Tuscany’s more rural side. 

Even apart from Florence, Tuscany contains multitudes. From Pisa with its famous tower to Lucca, where you can bicycle along the ancient city walls, to the mountains of the Apuan Alps, beloved of truffle hunters, and the many renowned wineries, there is beauty and history everywhere you turn. Even the picturesque island of Elba, where Napoleon was exiled for a year until he returned to France and met his Waterloo, is a department of Tuscany. 

One of the great pleasures in touring Tuscany is the touring itself. Here, getting there really is a great deal of the fun. Just taking in the landscape is quietly satisfying, allowing one to get into a rhythm and adjust to a slower, more measured approach to the day. Driving along the country roads, each turn or hillcrest opens up another vista. Each town has its historic duomo, its quaint eateries, and local wines.

Choosing a place to unpack your suitcases and make your base of operations allows you to make day trips to many of the classic locales throughout the region. Side note: managing to fit your belongings into carry-on luggage will serve you well at every stop. Less is truly more.

Heeding the wisdom of our travel planner and tour guide, aka my daughter Carly, we stayed at the Castello delle Serre in Serre di Rapolano, a 1,000-plus-year-old castle that has been thoroughly modernized into a hotel with gracious, attentive hosts and commanding views of the surrounding landscape. Watching the fog that cloaked the valleys burn off in the morning sun felt somehow like a Zen meditation. Carly was also our translator, which grows in importance the farther one ventures from the larger cities.

The ancient little town of Serre di Rapolano is equidistant from Siena, Arezzo, and Montepulciano, three Tuscan gems that display many of the attributes that make the area a world-class destination. Arezzo boasts historic murals by Piero della Francesca, as well as locally made gold jewelry and, mercifully, a long escalator that helps you up from where you park outside the city center. Not all the hilltop towns are so considerate, and, just as when these were Roman provincial towns, you can expect to walk many places where your chariot cannot be accommodated; be prepared with good walking shoes and a healthy exercise regimen prior to your visit. 

Montepulciano gives wine-loving visitors the chance to see where many of their favorite reds come from, particularly the Vino Nobile. Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, though, took the eponymous Montepulciano grape across Italy to the Abruzzo region, along with its name. One striking wine-tasting bar at the top of Montepulciano offers samples of hundreds of wines, one small glass at a time, with a self-serve prepaid card system. The terrace where you sip your choices has sweeping views of the countryside that has been occupied since the time of the Etruscans, before the founding of the Roman empire, and inside, there is a visual reminder of that history. Looking down from the tasting room through the plexiglass floor, you see beneath your feet the excavated catacombs of a civilization not centuries but millenniums old. 

Even apart from the renowned ancient sites, there is a pervading sense of history all around you in Tuscan hill towns. On many a wall, in buildings being used for stores, apartments, or both, there is evidence of centuries of stonework, with the hands of a series of masons, generation after generation, each using different stones or bricks, closing up what had been door or window openings, and making you realize you walk in the footsteps of untold passersby before you. There’s a reason they call this the “old world,” and Tuscany puts it on display. 

But the most sublime and awe-inspiring example of the Italian art of masonry and design comes in the cathedrals, or duomos, that dominate the towns and their skylines. Along with its Piazza del Campo, Siena boasts one of Italy’s most famous duomos, with an ornate marble façade, intricate and frankly over-the-top stonework, and containing sculptures by renowned artists including Bernini, Donatello, and Michelangelo. 

The structures are even more astounding when one considers the primitive tools and utter lack of any mechanized or power equipment available for their construction. The duomos took hundreds of years to build, so not only did the architects and original generation of builders not live to see their work completed, generations after them worked on and on for a project they would never see finished, all while living in a technically primitive culture, a society described by author William Manchester as “A World Lit Only by Fire.” 

The cathedrals are art created in the service of religion, meant to awe and dazzle the beholder. To many of those beholders, back when the buildings were made, the towns housing the duomos would represent the cosmopolitan “big city,” an overwhelming manifestation of the power and majesty of the faith they represented. Even more astounding is that despite the warring factions that fought over these regions – the hill towns were not built and walled, on the tops of rises or outcroppings just for the view – these treasures have survived intact roughly 1,000 years later. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the competing cities of Florence and Siena contested for primacy in the area, with allegiances in towns such as Montepulciano shifting back and forth over the years. Throw in the threat of looters, the Black Death and World War II, and you could call the duomos’ continued existence and beauty, well, miraculous. 

Another prime example of the duomo builders’ art, the cathedral of Orvieto, lies a few kilometers down the Autostrada in Umbria, technically outside of Tuscany but fitting right in with the region. This soaring duomo, considered one of the finest examples of medieval architecture in the world, dominates the town today and must have done so much more when it was new construction, although it did take 300 years to build. See it from the outside and then the inside and come up with your own superlatives. 

And speaking of superlatives, we can’t close without mentioning at least briefly the experience of dining in Tuscany. Enjoying the pleasures of the table is a deeply felt passion for native Tuscans, typically employing locally sourced foods and, of course, wines. The region abounds in delightful trattorias and cafes, each offering their own take on the Tuscan cuisine, meals that will make it difficult for you to be satisfied with the choices back home in the U.S. The cheeses and breads, the pasta and produce, the meats and sweets are all sublime examples of the “farm to table” philosophy.

One way to combine food and wine under the tutelage of professionals is to visit a local winery or two. The Félsina Estate vineyards, just a 20-minute drive from Serre di Rapolano, offer tours that include the cellars, where their wines are aged in enormous casks, the vineyards and olive groves where the grapes and olive oil come from, and a table where you can enjoy a delightful private lunch along with six of their wines and another five varieties of olive oil. The Antinori Vineyard along the road to Florence, features Chianti Classico and a welcome center with stunning modern architecture. Your table in their open-air dining room set mid-vineyard is just a few feet, or even fewer meters, away from the vines where the wine you are drinking was born. 

Tuscany richly merits the place it holds in the imagination of the world’s travelers, esthetes and gourmets. It exudes gracious living and calls out for a visit, or several, but no rush – a leisurely pace is perfectly appropriate.