Celebration of Fine Art

Renting a villa in Tuscany was a wonderful experience.

I am not sure how to describe this trip. Perhaps two words will give you the basic idea: Yum! & Wow!

We traveled with two other couples and rented a villa in Tuscan about a 20 min. drive (during non rush hour times) outside Florence. The villa is called Poggio Pipi, http://www.poggioalpipi.com/ here is the web site of the villa. It was fantastic. We were surrounded by olive groves and vineyards. The couple who own the villa cooked us the most fabulous dinner. It took 3 hours and was unforgettable.

We used the villa as a jumping off place to visit Florence, Siena, Pisa, and small towns in between and around the area. We visited museums and historic sites. We ate gelato, pizza, pasta and other delicacies. We prowled local markets. We drank local wines produced right down the street and bought olive oil from the local press.

Then we drove to Verona for a short visit and on to Venice where we had to abandon our car. Venice is one of our new favorite places except for one thing, the crowds. The population of Venice is only 60,000 but they have over 2 million visitors a year. Even going off season, during the week and in the afternoon you could hardly make your way through St. Marks square. I can’t imagine what it would be like in August! Cruise ships are one of the biggest contributors to this horde of people, dropping as many as 2,000 to 4,000 people a day for tours and shopping. The locals seem to still be friendly but we are just loving that city to death. If all you want is a gondola ride please go to Las Vegas and spare Venice.

While you know about all the famous museums and all the lovely and historic art throughout this birthplace of the Renaissance there is one special church that you shouldn’t miss. It is called “Basilica San Giorgio Maggiore” and is on its own small island in Venice. Like all churches in Italy it is magnificent in design but this one happened to have Tintoretto family as parishioners and many of their monumental paintings are housed here. It is well worth the short Vaporetto ride.

Yes, Venice is a place we will probably visit again.