A great museum for families with kids
A model railway museum in Florence? A friend took her grandchildren and can’t recommend the new HZero museum enough. All of them simply loved it. Continue Reading →
A model railway museum in Florence? A friend took her grandchildren and can’t recommend the new HZero museum enough. All of them simply loved it. Continue Reading →
I finally visited the isle of Montecristo, the tiny Mediterranean island where Alexandre Dumas’ count got his name and treasure. Today the island is a nature reserve and visits are strictly regulated. No more than 1725 people can visit each year. Every January the Parco del Arcipelago puts the available tickets up on their website. They sell out immediately. Continue Reading →
Art, theater, film – who doesn’t love a peak behind the scenes? Which is exactly what the Florentine museum Casa Buonarroti provides during the Artemisia Svelata (Artemisia Unveiled) restoration project.
Artemisia Gentileschi achieved great success as a painter in her lifetime in the early 1600s—a rare thing for a female artist of her era. She became one of the most desirable portrait painters in Italy. Continue Reading →
Tuscany’s unsalted bread is not for everybody – some love it, some don’t. A new mill and bakery south of Siena is making everybody happy. The Mulinum Buonconvento encourages farmers to organically grow ancient grain varieties. The flour is then ground and transformed by the local Mulinum. Continue Reading →
Have you ever noticed strange animal tracks on a Mediterranean beach? Along Italy’s shore, the sightings of sea turtles have become more regular in recent years. Caretta caretta, the protected loggerhead turtle, arrives at night looking for a place in the sand to lay her eggs. After depositing around 100 eggs, she uses her fins to cover the nest with sand. The procedure takes up to three hours. But by the early morning, the turtle is in the water again. Continue Reading →
I am very excited about the launch of our Trust&Travel-Inside Italy app. The travel app takes our blog one step further and allows us to share all the Italy insight we have discovered over the years: the tiny vineyards, unknown artisans, quiet chapels, and family-run restaurants that make this country so special. Continue Reading →
Halfway between Siena and Florence, there is a little farm that seems to have been sitting on its hill forever. Fattoria Corzano e Paterno produces excellent wine and olive oil, and a variety of Tuscan sheep cheeses that I can never resist. Continue Reading →
The Italian coastline does not need an introduction. But have you ever explored one of the country’s rivers? After 30 years in Italy, I finally ventured onto the Ombrone River in Southern Tuscany. Continue Reading →
In March 2022, the most important Donatello exhibition ever opens its doors in Florence. Over 50 museums from all over the world have lent works by the famous Renaissance master.
The exhibition takes place at Palazzo Strozzi and the Bargello museum, the permanent home of Donatello’s David. Works from Florence’s Basilica di San Lorenzo and Siena’s Cathedral have been moved for the first time and painstakingly restored for this occasion.
From September 2022, the exhibition will be on show in Berlin and in 2023 at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. However, the works from Siena Cathedral and Basilica di San Lorenzo will be on show in Italy only.
DONATELLO, The Renaissance – Florence Palazzo Strozzi & Bargello museum, March 19 to July 31, 2022
Last autumn, I took a little detour in Maremma. I had been at Il Priorato, one of excellence.villas’ high-end properties in southern Tuscany. Before heading back to Rome, I stopped for a coffee in the hilltop town Pereta.
I took a stroll through the pretty village and noticed a palazzo on the main square. It didn’t have a sign or a bell, but I marveled at its garden and the beautiful view from the town wall. “This type of setting,” I thought, “is exactly the sort of place I would love to call home.”
On the way back to my car, I checked Google Maps and to my surprise found a tag for a B&B with the enticing name “Locanda Sospesa” which could be freely translated to “floating boarding house.” Of course, the next time I was in the area, I booked myself a room there.
This is how I met Johnny and Elizabeth, the wonderful couple behind that secret door. During the first Covid lockdown, they left their corporate jobs in Rome and settled in Pereta, where Johnny had spent his childhood. Their two young daughters now go to the local school and Johnny and Elizabeth opened Locanda Sospesa to build a new life for themselves in the Tuscan countryside.
We had a lovely time and while Pereta’s beautiful palazzo may never be mine, I feel comforted now – it’s in good hands.
LOCANDA SOSPESA, Piazza San Marco 1, Pereta (GR).
