Author: Stefano

Stefano is a native from Florence but with a quarter of Sienese blood in his DNA and many years living in Pisa is a true Tuscan. He is still learning that his homeland has many corners and hidden gems he has to discover, ones he particularly enjoys seeing from the saddle of his bike.

About the EarthQuake in Abruzzo in Central Italy

April 9, 2009

As you probably already know, on the night of April 6 a strong earthquake (5.8 on the Richter scale) hit the region of Abruzzo in central Italy. The medieval city of L’Aquila, the region’s capital, was hit hard and other minor cities around it, like Onna, have been almost completely destroyed. The buildings were too…

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Lucca says stop to ethnic food?

January 30, 2009

Today I read on il Corriere della Sera (see the article in Italian) that Lucca‘s center-right city government has passed a local law that will not allow the opening of new restaurants preparing dishes “of a different ethnic origin”. So no more Kebab or Couscous shops at least within the old city walls, the most…

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Our new DT Travel Guide is online!

November 18, 2008

We finally made it! After several long and intense months of work, we launched a new version of our Discover Tuscany Travel Guide a few days ago! We completely reorganized the content and navigation, added new sections and new pictures and integrated this Blog and the Forum. The Florence section is growing so much that…

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Discovering the hills of Maremma

October 22, 2008

We have just returned from a short vacation in Maremma: we decided at the very last moment to leave on this trip, taking advantage of the warm sun and nice days this mid-October was giving us. We had never visited the upper part of Maremma close to Monte Amiata, between the Tuscan coast and Val…

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Geocaching in Florence

September 19, 2008

Have you ever heard about Geocaching? We hadn’t until a good friend of ours told us about it a few months ago, knowing how much we love to go hiking and discovering new places. So we found out that Geocaching is a treasure hunt game played all around the world by a huge community of…

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Dance with La Giostra !

September 2, 2008

We danced once again with Compagnia la Giostra during our last visit to Volterra Medieval Festival ! View and listen to this happy (medieval?) music ! 🙂

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Walking around Volterra in Medieval Times

August 29, 2008

We just got back from the year AD 1398 as did the hundreds of people that attended the medieval festival in Volterra this past weekend, the city’s largest annual event. We also got back to work after our short holiday, and that made it especially hard to return to modern times!On Sunday August 24th for…

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Vacationing in Tuscany? In a summer of bans, beware the fines!

August 20, 2008

All over Italy local laws have sprung up prohibiting one thing or another, and the risk is taking home a hefty fine as a souvenir It is well known that Italians are specialists in making laws and rules (and, unfortunately, just as good in not respecting them). So when the Berlusconi government gave the go-ahead…

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Gallicano and Barga: two little towns worth visiting

July 26, 2008

Hi! Today we took some more time to visit Gallicano, which this morning was almost a Ghost city. The party after the Palio di San Jacopo went on till late in the night and most of the citizens of Gallicano were sleeping : ) We were pretty sleepy ourselves, but walked around Gallicano to take…

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