As I wrote last week, November is the rainiest month in Tuscany. This week I almost thought I would have become a mermaid .  It luckily seems that the weather will be better during the weekend but unfortunately it’s not predictable. Here you have a selection of the main events in Florence and Tuscany.

Tastings and typical products:

In Florence there is the Food and Wine Biennial 2010 and from Friday to Saturday there will be the Market of Flavors and Crafts in Piazza della Repubblica and Piazza Strozzi from 9am to 8pm. There will also be the “Cantine del Leone”, free wine and oil tastings in several wineries of Chianti Colli Fiorentini.

From Saturday to Sunday in Bagno a Ripoli, few miles away from Florence, there will be Prim’Olio, olive oil market and tastings that have just been pressed in the Tuscan  countryside. In Scarperia, in the Mugello valley, there will be the Trade market of truffles and local products, as well as in San Miniato near Vinci, there will be the Market fair of white truffles, that are renowned all around Italy. Last but not least events related to Crete d’Autunno go on and this weekend in San Giovanni d’Asso there will be the Trade market of white truffles.

Arts and crafts:

For collectors, but also for shopping lovers, on Sunday November 14^th in Tavarnelle Val di Pesa in the Chianti region, there will be a nice antiques market, while in Piazza Santo Spirito in Florence there will be the Santo Spirito Fair, where you can buy hand-crafted products and artworks. In Asciano there will take place the Crete markets where you can find local had-crafted products, as well as you can taste local flood and wine.

Hoping that it won’t rain in the next few days I wish you all a nice weekend!

Last week we turned back the clock and now at 6.00 pm it is already dark. For me, November is the gloomiest month of the year, because it’s cold, the days are short and you don’t yet feel the holidays as in December. Luckily, in November there are many fairs and food festivals to cheer me up .

On November 6^th in Florence the Food and Wine Biennial 2010 will begin and last until November 22^nd. On Sunday November 7^th there will be Sweet Temptations where you can taste sweet wines as typical vinsanto together with typical cakes and cookies. In Piazza Santissima Annunziata there will be the nice and interesting Fair of Shepherds and Wool. There will be the exhibition of sheep and bovines, as well as organic food and wool.

In Scarperia in the Mugello valley, on Saturday and Sunday there will be the Market Fair of Truffles and Local Products that will also take place the following weekend on November 13^th and 14^th. On Sunday there will also be an antiques market.

In Pontassieve there will the Festival of New Oil with oil tastings, food and entertainments for children and adults. It will start on Saturday afternoon and continue on until Sunday night.

The weekly appointment with Crete d’Autunno Food Festival will be in Ponte a Tressa near Monteroni d’Arbia, where the Chianina and Cinta Senese Festival will take place. It will celebrate these delicious and fine Tuscan meats with tastings and guided tours to local farms. Here you can consult the program of Crete d’Autunno, unfortunately only in Italian.

Easter is coming soon. And we have information to share with you on what to do and what to see in Florence and Tuscany next weekend.

Most of the museums in Florence will be open on Easter Sunday and Monday (April 4 and 5). In particular some State Museums are “extraordinarily” open such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Accademia Gallery which are generally closed on Mondays. The Pitti Palace and Boboli Gardens, the San Marco Museum, Medici Chapels, Bargello Museum and Palazzo Davanzati will all be open.We recommend you check opening hours before visiting museums, since they can be different from usual schedules as well as suggest you book museums tickets in advance because Easter weekend is really busy and standing in line for hours is not the best way to pass it.

On Easter Sunday at 11.00 am the popular Scoppio del Carro in Piazza Duomo takes place in Florence. The Explosion of the Cart dates back to the 17th century and is a traditional ceremony carried out to figure out how the year’s harvest will turn out, a good omen is if everything goes off according to plan. The celebration is extremely beloved by Florentines. Before the explosion there is a delightful parade in medieval costume with flag throwers, commemorating Florence’s medieval Guilds.

After lunch you can visit Panzano in Chianti and enjoy the Aprilante Fair enjoying good food and the wares made by artisans along the streets.

In Italy, on Easter Monday we usually go out for a day trip to the countryside, enjoying a picnic in Chianti or in Mugello.

If you want to follow our tradition there are some nice events across Tuscany that you can include as part of your visit.

In Pontassieve there is a great exhibit this spring called “Beato Angelico in Pontassieve. Paintings and Sculptures from the First Florentine Renaissance” that will be open on Easter Monday from 9.30 to 12.30 and from 3.00 to 7.30 p.m. Many artworks from early Renaissance are displayed, such as a beautiful Madonna by Beato Angelico.

In Scarperia in the Mugello valley you’ll find the beautiful Flower exhibit “2000 Flowers in Scarperia“. If you want to breathe and smell spring in Tuscany, we recommend you visit anytime between 10 am and 7 pm in the Renaissance center of the city.

If you are looking for antiques or other interesting older items, you can visit the antiques market in Fiesole in the main square. Or go to Chianti stopping at Greve in Chianti’s large antiques fair where you can find almost anything.

We’ll keep our fingers crossed so that the nice sunny weather we’ve been having this week holds so that we can all spend a warm Easter in Tuscany full of sunshine!

This past weekend we tried something different from the medieval festivals we’ve come to love and went to Scarperia to step back into time, but not so far back: only about five centuries back into the Renaissance. The festival took place on September 6 and 7 as part of the festivities that precede the Palio del Diotto that takes place on September 8 of every year in Scarperia.

Scarperia, founded in 1306 as a local seat of the Florentine Republic, is considered one of the most beautiful hamlets in Italy and makes the perfect setting for a Renaissance festival. The stone streets were covered in straw, stalls along the streets showed artisans making paper or candles or binding books, blacksmiths pounded on iron, bowyers cut across wood to make bows and fletchers prepared their arrows. Market stalls offered local products such as honey and homemade preserves and cheese. There was also entertainment, from throwing small sacks at targets that would make a jester fall into a large tub of water to targets made of small pyramids of jars to knife throwing. The prize a bottle of red wine.

Then there were the processions in historical Renaissance costumes, the flag-throwers, the drummers. Horses were tethered at the soldier camps, where one could see swords and bows. Inns and taverns offered food and drink, and a chance to rest for a few minutes. All purchases has to be made in the coin of that time, the “fiorino“, especially minted for the occasion.

Particularly unusual and interesting were the falconers with both falcons and owls that demonstrated the predators’ as the flew across the piazza. It was an unexpected and delightful chance to view these truly magnificent creatures in flight at such a close distance.

Scarperia is a small town and visiting it during the festival made it seem particularly enchanting. It was easy to see all of crafts and offerings and catch most of the wandering characters as they performed on the streets. It was a fun day and we highly recommend visiting the town on this special occassion. We were unfortunately a bit too tired to go back the following day to also see the Palio del Diotto, but we definitely plan on making it next year – hope to see you there!