What's Up Tuscany English

With the whole of Europe sweltering under a prolonged heat wave, the task of producing a 30 minutes scripted show every week is proving to be a bit too taxing on our little team. That's why for the summer we've decided to keep things pithy and leave room for those quirky stories that were a bit too short to make it to the regular show. This week the summer edition of What's Up Tuscany will bring y...

For every negative about the warm season in a particularly muggy place like the Arno valley, there is a silver lining. None is more tasty and enticing as a cup overflowing with freshly made gelato. The icy treat that has taken the world by storm has a complex history and no one is really sure where it came from. People in Florence have no doubt about it: gelato is their thing, one of the many cont...

Now that the warm season is finally on, Tuscany has been flooded with tourists coming from all over the world looking to enjoy everything that this remarkable region has to offer. Near the top of their priority list, in many cases, drink plenty of great Tuscan wine. If you love to visit the birthplace of the wines you're passionate about, Montalcino definitely won't disappoint you. The home of the...

After a 2 year pause due to the pandemic, Piazza del Campo will be crowded yet again this weekend thanks to the inimitable madness made in Siena called Palio. This ancient race is so peculiar to be completely incomprehensible to whoever wasn't born and raised under the Torre del Mangia. Instead of wasting your time in a long monologue to explain you what makes this event unique, we have decided to...

As we promised a couple of weeks ago, time for our second instalment of the mini-series of episodes dedicated to the festivals that populate the calendar of Pisa during the month of June. After waxing lyrical on the Luminara, the amazing light festival that turns the city of the Leaning Tower into a fairytale scenario, time for the big daddy, the main event that closes the month. On the last Satur...

This week What's Up Tuscany will bring you back to one of our region's least known but more fascinating areas, the wild and charming Garfagnana. Almost a year ago, we told you the tale of the village that was drowned by the waters of an artificial lake created by a new hydroelectric dam and how it resurfaces every 20 years, attracting tourists from all over the world. Not too far from the "little...

Last Saturday your friendly neighbourhood host was finally able to visit one of the most iconic places in Tuscany, a very special and grandiose abbey built quite literally in the middle of nowhere. What makes this hard to reach place so unique? The fact that it's quite big, doesn't have a roof, windows or pavement. And, yes, nearby there is an antique sword thrust into a rock. The abbey of San Gal...

As we realised that we hadn't talked much in the past about one of the most famous cities in Tuscany, this week we will walk you through some of the stories and least known places in Siena, the city of the Palio. This rather peculiar city seems to revel in the fact that it's a bit isolated, difficult to reach. The "senesi" are very welcoming, warm people but may feel a bit insular, as if no one th...

The month of June is special everywhere in Tuscany but in Pisa it's really something else. For the so-called "Giugno Pisano" there are many events that celebrate the rich heritage of the ancient harbour city and its folklore. In the first of our mini-series dedicated to the celebrations in Pisa, we'll walk you through the first event. On June 16th, the landmarks of Pisa are lighted by 100000 oil l...

Despite being clearly visible at the horizon from most of Tuscany, not many people know and appreciate the mountains that protected our region from invaders since the dawn of time. They may be far away from the stereotypical image many have when they think about Tuscany, but the mountains are just as stunning and full of interesting places as the rest of our homeland. This is why this week What's...

Of the many areas of Tuscany that are little known by many tourists, few are as beautiful or fascinating as the hills and mountains of Casentino, between Florence and Arezzo. What can be considered the dark heart of Tuscany has many things working for it. Outstanding natural beauties, the largest wild forest in the region, plenty of historical castles, abbeys and villages, food specialties to die...

Cities in Tuscany are famous for many reasons: amazing monuments, art treasures in their museums to the incredible wine and food. A town in the North has risen to fame for something different: a rock that has become synonymous with luxury - white marble. Carrara has a lot more to offer than the famous quarries, starting from its fearsome reputation as a hotbed for civil dissent. Anarchists have al...

While we continue to look for the best way to spread the love for our homeland as far and wide as possible, we realised that most foreigners always put the word "wine" together with "Tuscany" on their searches. The relationship between this land and its wine is very deep, enough to make some people think that if you drew blood from a Tuscan, you'd get at least 50% Chianti in it. The story of how t...

So you've finally took the plunge and arrived in Tuscany. You're in Pisa and realise you have a day off before going back home. Where to go? Don't fret, What's Up Tuscany is here to help! What if I told you that, less than an hour away from the Leaning Tower, there are the remains of a city that was so rich that a Viking warlord, after sacking it, told everyone he had pillaged Rome? The ancient po...

This week we've decided to accept a challenge in order to prove just how extraordinary our beloved Tuscany really is. We've been saying since day one that our land is so full of beautiful things that it would take a lifetime to know them all. Yes, Florence, Lucca and Siena are splendid but what about the many other, very forgettable towns? If you know where to look, even the ugliest of them has so...

In the year we've spent trying to explain what makes Tuscany so special, we haven't talked as much as we should have about the fairer half of the world, the extraordinarily complex people that make our lives worth living. Tuscan women, as far as we're concerned, are really one of a kind. You would have to travel far and wide in order to find people so able to effortlessly combine so many diverse a...

In our constant quest for the unexpected corners of the beautiful land we call home, this week we'll bring you to a destination that, despite being probably the first thing that tourists see when they step off their plane, is very far away from their thoughts. The mountains that overlook the city of Pisa have been inhabited since antiquity and are home to many myths and legends. It's not easy to g...

Sometimes the simplest of questions are the ones that you just can't answer. When foreigners ask us what to see when they visit Italy, we are completely stuck. Too many choices, too many different things to talk about. The same applies to even simpler questions, such as the one we were recently asked: "why should I spend more than 30 minutes in Pisa". So, you've seen the Leaning Tower, snapped a s...

While Tuscany remains a land of small towns, not all of those hamlets perched on the hills are as charming and impeccably maintained as we see in the pictures of magazines or travel guides. Some have adapted to the unrelenting march of progress, others have just faded away, falling into disrepair and oblivion. In Italy there are 2 million homes that have been practically abandoned by their owners....

Looking back at the episodes we released in the past year, we've come to realise with some horror that we've provided you with plenty of legends but not much practical info, the kind of local knowledge that might help anyone who finds himself landing in an airport miles and miles away from his final destination. If you're interested in a bit more than what you can find on the front page of your to...

In our constant fight to dispel some of the stereotypes that surround our homeland, sometimes we have to struggle to undo the work of some of our compatriots, who seem a little bit too eager to be liked and tend to stick to whatever works best with the audience. While understandable when you're trying to sell a product, this is much more questionable when it comes to our very own history. Our regi...

After spending the last few episodes going through the least known pages of the history of our region, we go back to one of the original missions of this podcast: tell the tales and legends that made this land so special and unique. Rather than a weird collection of random stories, we will bring you to the wonderful town of Lucca, a Medieval gem that is quite misunderstood. How is it so? Most peop...

Despite the postcard image famous around the world, the sunny disposition of its inhabitants is just a clever disguise. Every Tuscan has been in mourning for a few centuries. Deep in our hearts we fear that we will never be able to rival the accomplishments of our ancestors and get back to the golden age of our land, when a perfect storm of financial power, brains and political savvy made our regi...

To celebrate the one year anniversary of our podcast, we have decided to tackle another stereotype linked to our beloved homeland, the one that paints it as a serene place, where the living is easy and people are always laughing. When foreigners think that Tuscany is like that, we locals get annoyed very quickly. Sure, you can find places like that around here but never forget that this land of ou...

In the year we have spent telling you the stories of this land, we've often said that Tuscany is more of a state of mind rather than a fixed geographic entity. Even us Tuscans have endless debates where we never agree even on the borders of this land. Is Carrara Tuscany or Liguria? Does Maremma really belong? We hardly ever talk about the elephant in the room, the one that stares us in the face ev...