Tuscany has it all – beautiful scenery, delicious wine, and amazing cuisine. No wonder it’s one of the most popular destinations in the world for food and wine lovers alike.
A typical itinerary for a trip to Tuscany would include visiting the beautiful piazzas of Florence, eating as much gelato as possible, and drinking Italian wine at a cafe nestled in a small winding back street. This sounds like a truly enjoyable trip, but why not go a step beyond the normal tourist vacation? Tuscany has many unique experiences just waiting to be discovered by the intrepid foodie.
To get off the beaten food path, you will want to get out of the big cities. Tuscany is known for its breathtaking rolling hills, its famous strade bianche (white-colored dirt roads) stretching as far as the eye can see, and its sentinel cypress trees standing guard over the large tracts of agricultural land. If you want a foodie vacation, you really need to get past where food is served and into where it is produced.
Delicious cuisine always starts with delicious ingredients. Visiting local agricultural producers, like olive mills to learn how olive oil is made, farms to discover how the locals make sheep’s milk cheese, or vineyards, where you can taste Tuscany’s famous Chiantis and Brunello di Montacinos, allows you to explore a side of Italian cuisine most travelers don’t get to see. This, in turn, makes the food that much more delightful and your trip that much more memorable.
This isn’t always easy in Italy. You can’t just stop into any farm you drive past and even many wineries are not open to the public or are limited in their hours. But just keep your eyes peeled for signs such as “orario apertura” (opening hours), “degustazione” (tasting, often wine tasting) or “formaggio” (cheese) or “olio” (oil) to find ag producers eager to show you their wares.
Or if you don’t want to try to plan it out all yourself, you can consider taking an organized group tour, such as our Tuscany Food & Wine Taste Vacation. An organized tour not only saves you the hassle of planning but gets you into places and in contact with people you would simply never visit and meet on your own. Plus, our food tours in Tuscany are led by an expert Tuscan guide who will translate, explain, enlighten, and charm his way into your heart and help create what will not just be an amazing vacation but a life experience.
