January 2016 “As Americans, you should feel at home with the sounds of gunfire” our housesitting host says with that famously-cheeky Scottish wit. This was during our first walk with Craig and his wife Elly’s energetic Labrador as shots echoed through the woods around us. We had just arrived to a rural patch of northern Tuscany, near … More Gunshots & Raindrops: Housesitting in Tuscany
As soon as we set our backpacks down in Fivizzano, where we were house-sitting for a month, we began hearing tales of black magic. Apparently, this corner of northern Tuscany in the Lunigiana region is long famed for the inhabitants’ spell-conjuring ways. Superstitions and suspicions run high here and it’s no wonder with such dramatic history. … More Castles of Tuscany x 2 – Castello Della Verrucola
Driving through northern Tuscany’s Lunigiana region feels like drifting through a portal into a medieval fantasy. Ruins of once-glorious fortifications magically appear like apparitions on hilltops above as you wind around switchbacks hugging the river valley. Often referred to as, “the land of a hundred castles,” the region is rich in such fairytale imagery and … More Castles of Tuscany x 2: Castello dell’Aquila
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