The Tuscan Sun

There have been many movies made in Tuscany, or in Italian called Toscana. If you've seen the movie "Under the Tuscan Sun" it captures a little bit of Italy. Sure we would love to own a villa in Toscana. Keep in mind, Toscana is a region, visitors sometimes think it is a city in Italy. Rome is NOT in this region, rather another region called Lazio which Rome is the capital for that region along with being the capital for the country. In Toscana, I will eventually cover a few major cities and provinces located in this great region of Italy. We will look at Firenze (Florence), Siena, and Pisa. But first we want to cover the highlights of the region before we dig deeper into those beautiful cities of the region.

Toscana is one of 20 regions in Italy (if you are in the USA, think of a region as a state). Five of the 20 regions are "special autonomous status" where they can enact its own local legislation. Toscana region borders the region of Lazio directly to the South, the Tyrrhenian Sea (part of the Mediterrenean Sea) to the West, the region of Umbria to the Southeast and the region of Liguria and Emilio-Romagna regions to the North. The capital of Toscana is Florence. Toscana is known for its arts and landscape, but it's agriculture consists of the wine and olives. Some of the best wines and olives in the world are grown and processed in the Toscana region. Potatoes, sunflowers, beets, rice, vegetables, and grains for cereals are other staples that are grown here in Toscana.

For people who like wine, you need to travel to the inland area of Toscana where the world famous Chianti wines are found. Chianti wines are the famous red wine in Italy found in the Toscana region. When you are in this region, it is a must to try their red wine with your meal, and it's one of the best tasting red wines in the world. Wine is not that expensive in Italy and you can have it with your meal for lunch or dinner. The wines from the Chianti vineyards are everywhere throughout Toscana, so missing out on it, you will be missing on a big taste of Italy.

Olives here are devine and they are so pure. You need to try olive oil here for they are very pure and they do not put a lot of salt in the olive oil unlike the ones we purchase in the USA. The olive oils that are pure are going to be bitter. Ask for olive oil anytime when you go to restaurants to eat it with your bread. You will get a bitter taste at first bite, but let it linger in your taste buds for a bit and you can see the after taste is much better and taste really good. In other words, don't give up on the taste after your first bite, you never know what you will be missing.

A note about bread when you are at restaurants, they DO charge for the bread at restaurants. It's usually a per person charge. If you don't eat the bread, do let them know so they won't charge you. But becareful also when you sit at the restaurant because they will charge you for just a sitting fee. If you want to avoid all that, just go to your local "cafe" like restaurants where you can see your food at a deli style and you can order it at the counter and take it back to your seat (usually no sit down fee there). Well hope this is making you hungry so it's now time to EAT!