It’s no accident that there are few if any Starbucks in Italy. Arguably, Italy (in our humble opinion) invented the concept that Starbucks shoots for. In Italy there often are two or three bars per city block, staffed by a skilled “barista” who knows their customer personally and serves even the quickest, cheapest coffee with…
Whether it’s the gripping history of the Medici family, the inescapable allure of the Duomo or the seemingly endless string of artistic masters that lived and worked there (Dante, da Vinci, Brunelleschi, Michelangelo…and on and on and on), Florence presents you with innumberable excuses to stay “just one more night.” In fact, when I first…
Each Monday, The UnTourist interviews an UnTourist of the Week and features the discussion for your enjoyment. This week’s UnTourist is Metha Hillard, who has been on 17 UnTours. We hope you enjoy her story. Thanks, Metha! Tell us a little bit about your most recent UnTour. In the spring of 2011, after a stay…
Although UnTours are about so much more than the great apartments you stay in, we want to give you an idea of the types of apartments we have to help you make more informed decisions when choosing your UnTour. So, each week, we’ll be featuring a property for you. Enjoy! Il Pozzo Our Il Pozzo…
Photo: “Toscana – Val d’Orcia – dalla Via della Foce” © 2009 Oishi Kuranosuke, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ If you ask me, it’s a given that Italian food (you know, the kind cooked in Italy) is going to delight your taste buds. In addition to the gustatory glee I get from…
As you well know, Italy is overflowing with great food and abundant with amazing places to eat all that food. In places like Rome, Florence and Venice, it can be a snap to find good restaurants in Rick Steves’ Italy guidebooks or one of the many other excellent guidebooks out there. However, if you’re in…
1.”Tell us a little bit about your most recent UnTour.” We’re not typical UnTourists because our last tour was our seventh consecutive visit to South Tuscany. Being in a familiar place, we didn’t feel compelled to visit every museum, inspect every basilica, and hike up the main street of every hill town listed in the…
Although UnTours are about so much more than the great apartments you stay in, we want to give you an idea of the types of apartments we have to help you make more informed decisions when choosing your UnTour. So, each week, we’ll be featuring a property for you. Enjoy! Le Chiuse in Montalcino, Tuscany…
The next time you’re in Tuscany and you’re looking for a unique day trip, head to Murlo. If you’re like most people, you’ve probably never heard of Murlo. Heard of Siena? Sure. Tuscany? You probably saw the movie. But, Murlo? Probably not. And that’s through no fault of your own! Murlo is so off-the-grid and…
When it comes to taking a train in Italy, think real estate. Only, instead of “location, location, location,” think “validate, validate, validate.” Validating your train tickets may well be the biggest money-saving activity you can do when it comes to Italian train travel. If you don’t validate your ticket, you could be forced to pay…