My Tuscan Summer

Somehow I was lucky enough to spend a full two months travelling around Tuscany this summer.

The first place I ventured to was Cala Moresca near Porto Santo Stefano, a point of Italy's coast which directly faces the Isola del Giglio where the Costa Concordia famously sank in 2012. We could actually see the Concordia (albeit very faintly) across the sea from us as we sat at the restaurant one night for dinner!

The sea here was honestly the best sea I have ever seen and swum in in my life. There is no beach - you just jump right in from the cliff edges. There was also a swimming pool located atop one of the cliffs - but why anyone would choose that over the shimmering blue sea I have no idea.

Cala Moresca - Yes there are people sitting up there high on the cliffs waiting to jump into the rocky waters below

The sea at Cala Moresca again - I think I could swim here every summer for the rest of my life and not get tired of it

See those two dots of light in the distance? That's the Costa Concordia!

Sunset view from our dinner table

After spending 4 weeks by the sea, we moved around visiting different cities.

Siena was small, extremely pretty, and historically the ancient rival to Florence. Every summer there is a famous horse race here, the Palio di Siena, which packs out the main square in the town. Luckily we weren't visiting on that day.

Siena's Cathedral

From the floor inside the cathedral

...and the ceiling (part of it)

Siena's clock tower in the main piazza

Pienza is a gorgeous little town that we stumbled across in between visiting some of Tuscany's more famous cities. Smaller even than Siena and Pisa and nowhere near as heavily jammed with tourists, I loved it mainly for its romantically named streets:

Street of Kisses

Street of Fortune

Street of Love

And also for these nuns:

Florence was very busy, very hot and very beautiful, I want to go back this autumn to see it again because I only got to spend one day there, along with probably thousands of other tourists. 

Cathedral of Firenze

Across the Arno

I can't seem to resist documenting sweet shops on my travels

There's only one reason people go to Pisa. The town didn't have much to offer other than the leaning tower, but nevertheless I think it is definitely worth making the trip and I'm glad I can tick it off my Italian bucket list.

This next picture is just something I took from our garden one night when the moon was absolutely huge and brilliantly shiny (this photo doesn't quite do it justice, but with the sunflowers and mountains there it's still pretty nice).

There is such a wealth of culture, history and amazingly good food in Tuscany that it was hard to leave at the end of summer, but then I remembered I was going back to my favourite city in the world so I didn't mind too much.