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It’s been a day and a half because I left Tuscany and returned to London. Since then, I’ve been deeply missing the charm of the Tuscan countryside, the warmth and friendship that radiated from our agriturismo, and much more than anything, the marvelous food and red wine that defined this trip, from beginning to end.
This trip was exactly what I needed.
I’ve long recommended G Adventures to my readers searching for trip groups. Between their commitment to sustainable travel, keeping their groups small and manageable, and having broad variety of activities and adventures all over the world, they do a lot of things right.
But to be honest, I’d never wanted to a group trip in Europe, other than something like an island cruise. Europe is a continent that I’ve traveled extensively solo and a place where I’m very comfortable. I wince at the thought of being herded through a major city by a guide with an umbrella.
Local Living trips are different. instead of moving from place to place, you spend a week based in one town or city, getting to know it intimately through connection to the land and the people. Lots of fun activities are planned, and there is also quite a bit of totally free time so you can do your own thing.
There are lots of local Living trips in Europe, from a canal boat in burgundy to a farmhouse in Iceland, or a house on the coast of Crete. (There are some trips outside Europe, like a beach house in Costa Rica or even a ger in Mongolia!)
My trip, local Living southern Tuscany, is one of the most popular local Living trips — and you stay at an agriturismo, or farm guesthouse, in southern Tuscany, surrounded by vineyards and silvery olive trees.
Agriturismo Life
I had never heard of the Tuscan town of Chianciano Terme (kee-AHN chee-AHN-o TAIR-may) before this trip. It doesn’t have the well-known works of art or memorable sights of other Tuscan towns, but it has THE view for the ages. This is what I woke up to every morning.
My room was very comfortable — rooms (and beds) can often be hit or miss in Italy, but this was one of the nicer ones where I’ve stayed. And best of all, I had a balcony overlooking that view!
Our time at the agriturismo was all about our host: a gregarious, bearded man with a deep, flourishing voice and a passion for organic farming. Meet Stefano.
Stefano warmly welcomed us and immediately began feeding us. One minute he’d be telling us about olive oil, teaching us to slurp it up with such velocity that it burned the back of our throats.
The next, he’d be educating us on vin santo, the sweet Tuscan dessert wine.
Cantuccini e vin santo, almond cookies that you dip into the wine, is a popular dessert in Tuscany, but the vin santo that comes with the cookies is not nearly as good as the high quality stuff. We sampled both the low- and high-quality vin santo. At first, the two were indistinguishable to me; by the time Stefano’s lesson concluded, I was spitting out the low-quality stuff in disgust.
At one point, Stefano even suggested that we sample the raw ground pork he had been mixing with olive oil and garlic. I recoiled. “No, it’s okay,” he said. Stefano is so confident of the quality of his pigs that he told us we’d have no problem.
So I tasted the raw pork — and it was delicious.
Organic food makes such a difference, especially in America, where chemicals and unnatural substances fill much of our food. The next day at breakfast, I ate a clementine stuffed with seeds. I’ve been used to eating seedless clementines.
Turns out, one of my companions pointed out, seedless clementines are genetically modified. With that knowledge, I’ll happily go back to the seeded ones.
Passionate Locals, amazing Food
One thing I love about Italy is that the people are so passionate about what they do. You’d be hard-pressed to find an ambivalent Italian!
One evening, we took a stroll up the hill into the old town of Chianciano Terme and went to a family-run winery, Agricola Fontanelle. The three Rosati brothers, Riccardo, Valerio, and Leonardo, are producers of several beautiful wines from the town.
We were invited into the red wine cellar — which felt much more like a red wine closet, as it was on the ground floor — and Riccardo poured us samples of several wines, as our G Adventures CEO, Vivi, translated from Italian to English.
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