One of the places I most love, and want to go back to sometime is Tuscany - I spent six weeks working on an archaeological dig just outside Siena.
(The dig itself convinced me that a) I really do not like viper-infested hillsides, b) I did not want to be an archaeologist when I grew up, and c) I am *really* good at colour matching pieces of pottery. This last, alas, is not a widely employable skill.)
But we were staying in a 14th century Italian villa. (Well, we were staying in the somewhat younger stable block, and by the time I was there they'd recently replaced the wood fired water heater with one you didn't have to lay a fire for first and then wait 30 minutes). But it's also a working farm, and it was the best 6 weeks of food in my *life*.
Also really stunning scenery and vistas of land split up by cypresses. You know those shots in The Gladiator of his home? Tuscany really does, I swear, look like that in the countryside, and it's got that kind of light, too.
I also got to see the Palio, which is a really really terrifying and historical horse race. (It is run between the contradas of Siena - neighborhoods of the city - and there's a whole lot of formal pagentry before the race. But the actual *race*, each contrade hires a jockey, but they pick the actual horses by lot. It's run around the central plaza in Siena, and there are often major injuries and fatalities (and also often fights in the crowd for hte actual race: we watched from a nice safer and air-conditioned bar) but the pagentry part was awesome.
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Tuscany
Date: 2013-08-07 05:57 pm (UTC)(The dig itself convinced me that a) I really do not like viper-infested hillsides, b) I did not want to be an archaeologist when I grew up, and c) I am *really* good at colour matching pieces of pottery. This last, alas, is not a widely employable skill.)
But we were staying in a 14th century Italian villa. (Well, we were staying in the somewhat younger stable block, and by the time I was there they'd recently replaced the wood fired water heater with one you didn't have to lay a fire for first and then wait 30 minutes). But it's also a working farm, and it was the best 6 weeks of food in my *life*.
Also really stunning scenery and vistas of land split up by cypresses. You know those shots in The Gladiator of his home? Tuscany really does, I swear, look like that in the countryside, and it's got that kind of light, too.
I also got to see the Palio, which is a really really terrifying and historical horse race. (It is run between the contradas of Siena - neighborhoods of the city - and there's a whole lot of formal pagentry before the race. But the actual *race*, each contrade hires a jockey, but they pick the actual horses by lot. It's run around the central plaza in Siena, and there are often major injuries and fatalities (and also often fights in the crowd for hte actual race: we watched from a nice safer and air-conditioned bar) but the pagentry part was awesome.