AREZZO

Day trips from Florence are almost always to the nearby attractive and interesting cities and villages: Siena, San Gimignano, Pisa, Montepulciano, etc. But we have done these so many times we head for a totally non-tourist destination: Arezzo.

Travelling by train in Italy is so easy it is a mistake to hire a car .. which is impossible to drive through the cities and costs a fortune to park.

Just like in any country, the view from a train is the worst view of the country: back yards, industrial sites, graffiti, endless junk. But also little villages, a surprising amount of green countryside, well tended Vinyards, olive terraces and fields.

It was such a relief to be out of the tourist crush of Florence and walk around Arezzo. Quiet streets. Making this trip on a Monday made it even quieter but was a bit of a mistake because many things are closed in Italy on both Sunday and Monday.

Not surprisingly we soon find that there are no tourists in Arezzo because there is so little to see. Siena, for example is far far more interesting. On the other hand, this is a “real” provincial Italian town and is interesting enough.

They have a massive fortress (sorry, closed).

And the town itself is a treasure of the past.

The best thing in the old center of Arezzo that we do discover is the Cathedral. An outstanding, ancient building, still used every day and quite unusual in its floor plan.

And that was Arezzo. We walk and walk and gawk and gawk and have a late lunch in a little very local restaurant and take the train back home.

FIESOLE

For whatever reason, whenever we are in Florence we hike up to the ancient Etruscan town of Fiesole. It is a few thousand years older than Florence and so worth paying homage to, but actually we do it for the fine strenuous hike.

If you ever do this, do it on a Sunday or the traffic will make it a misery.

This wasn’t a very good day to make the climb. A very cloudy overcast day and plus they are burning “le Cep”, the grape trimmings, creating a lot of smoke.

And .. there is almost nothing to do up there! A bit of Roman ruins, hardly any Etruscan. Too early to sit and drink a well deserved cold beer.

There was a little bit of local market going on that entertained us for a few minutes.

We bought a little locally produced fresh unfiltered olive oil. We were tempted by the superb vin santo, but passed on it and the huge bottles of grappa (hand made labels indicating 48% alcohol!) and went back down the hill for lunch. With our oil.

—————————————————————

Thanks for coming along.