Our Tuscany UnTour is a perennial favorite, and ranks among our most popular UnTour destinations. It is hard to beat the views here in the Orcia Valley, south of Siena. With its stark rolling green hills, cypress trees, and vineyards, its landscape is so distinctive that the area was named a UNESCO World Heritage site…
Tracy Louis Hyde has led our Tuscany UnTour on the ground near Montalcino for a couple years now. She loves her work with us and is eager to share her region. She took some time to share some thoughts about her work and her love for Tuscany. Tell us a little bit about your professional…
Our dear friend and colleague Harriet Gussoni passed away this year, on July 22. Harriet ran our Tuscany UnTour on the ground in Italy since its beginning, in the early 90s until her recent retirement from her UnTours work in fall of 2017. Harriet was born in the US and her studies of Renaissance art…
Our loyal and frequent UnTourist Joanne Choyka made a cool discovery last fall in Tuscany. This is a photo taken last fall in Pitigliano, in Tuscany. My grandparents immigrated from this town to the US in the early 1900’s. My grandfather took a job working at the Hershey Chocolate factory in Hershey, Pennsylvania, where my…
There are so many things to see and do in Tuscany, it is easy to overlook some real gems. That’s why we recommend staying for a week or longer and renting an apartment and car in the countryside, like we offer on our Tuscany UnTour. Florence, Pisa, and Siena will be on most itineraries. But…
Here at UnTours HQ, we live for this sort of thing. After all the work and planning, we love to know our guests are having fun. So our new UnTours Photo Contest has brought us pure joy. For much of spring and summer, we have received brilliant photos from Europe, each reflecting the joy, wit,…
On our last day at the UnTours farm near Spoleto in Umbria, Maurizia at the nearby bakery gave us big hugs and kisses and “bona fortuna” as we thanked her for the wonderful open “forno” experience. We would miss our morning trip for danish, panini, and poppy gazing. We also had to say goodbye with…
This is part one in a series on the ancient Etruscan civilization that inhabited central Italy from the 8th – 4th centuries BC. Planning our trip to Italy last May, I became interested in the historical finds of the Etruscans, who thrived during four centuries BC and contributed heavily to Roman civilization. The Greeks regarded…
Used for the Pantheon, Trajan’s Column, and Michelangelo’s David in Rome, Carrara marble was valued above all other stone. The mountains were first exploited by Julius Caesar with origins from the 2nd century BC. Located in the northernmost tip of modern-day Tuscany, this blue-grey or white high quality-marble is coveted by artisans and used worldwide. …
Above: Tarot Gardens photo by s9-4pr, CC Interested in contemporary sculpture? Tuscany is a surprisingly furtile place for it! See how the shock of the new and surreal commune with the deep natural beauty of the Tuscan landscape. There are some fantastic sculpture gardens to explore near our farm house apartments on the Tuscany UnTour. Here…