Montenegro...

I loved Montenegro. Well as much as you can love a place you see on a one-day bus trip. But if you only have a one-day bus trip it’s still worth doing. Spectacular scenery, and wonderful villages that were either perched on the edge of a steep slope with winding narrow streets and gorgeous views, or huddled at the bottom of the hills, around vast, beautiful lakes.

Our first stop was Budva, which was described to us as the “Miami of Montenegro” – full of oligarch’s yachts and tanned women taking pouting selfies. It felt over-touristy. But that was the only disappointing stop of the day (and I guess not disappointing if you like that kind of thing).

Kotor was a highlight. An absolutely beautiful, ancient village which has been written about since before the time of Homer (apparently it used to be a Greek city). This is one of the things that amazes me about travelling in Europe – it’s the incredible history. Just the fact that people have been living in Kotor for so many centuries is a wonderful thing to me. It’s one of the steep villages with gorgeous views if you’re prepared to climb to the top.

Dubrovnik

I’ve wanted to go to Dubrovnik for years. Now, everybody wants to go to Dubrovnik and it’s a huge tourist destination. This is both good and bad. As a tourist myself I can hardly complain that there are too many tourists – I’m part of the problem as much as anybody else, and I did wistfully think a couple of times, that I wish I’d gone to Dubrovnik a decade ago before it became not only a huge tourist destination in it’s own right, but also a huge tourist destination for Game of Thrones fans.

It’s still a wonderful place to see. I’m glad we went. But I think, in retrospect it might have been better to choose somewhere less well known. It’s tricky of course for the people who live and work in this area. Tourism brings in so much money, but it also changes the face of the city, and the feel of it. Dubrovnik doesn’t feel like a working city to me, a place where people live and raise their children. It feels completely geared to a tourist market. All the shops sell souvenirs, or ice cream or standard tourist (read unadventurous and pricy) food. I’m not sure what the answer is, in many places tourism is the main industry and it employs so many, but it’s also a blight that removes any sense of authenticity from a place.

We stayed outside the city walls, and took a lot of day trips – to the Elaphiti Islands, into neighbouring Montenegro, and out into the countryside, so we (mostly) stayed out of the walled city during the day when all the cruise ships disgorged their thousands of tourists, so for us it wasn’t so bad. I’m glad we went… but I wouldn’t go back again.

On the road, a bit more Tuscany...

Driving in Tuscany is famous for a very good reason – it is beautiful. It’s full of history too of course, but I think what I loved most about it was how embedded the people seemed to be with their landscape. How well kept the vegetable gardens are, how neat the olive groves look. It is a landscape that speaks of care. It looks loved and valued.

We did quite a lot of driving, stopping in the small towns (each seemed to have it’s own character) and just meandering a bit aimlessly – taking photos. It was glorious and slow and interesting. Blue skies, stone buildings, narrow winding streets, flowerpots. Extraordinary art even in the smallest churches. Wonderful food. Who wouldn't love it?

A Week in Tuscany (or Turn Left Now!)...

I’ve driven in Italy before (badly). It’s the wrong side of the road for me, and I kept clipping my wing mirror. I just couldn’t quite figure out where my car was on the road. So this time I decided not to drive and left that up to Luke. I figured that if I couldn’t manage driving in my 20s when I had great eyesight and was brave, I shouldn’t attempt it now.

Fortunately I didn’t have to, and I didn’t have to navigate (navigate = holding a map upside down, pretending I had some idea where we were), because of that wonderful invention, the GPS. So that meant just staring out the window, being enveloped by the beautiful Tuscan countryside. At least that was the plan…

First we had to get out of Florence. If you’ve ever read about what it’s like driving in Florence you’ll know it has a complicated one-way system, whole parts of the city you can only drive in at certain times of day, in certain vehicles, and an extortionate traffic-fine system that will follow you to your home country (or at least, the hire car company will charge your credit card even when you’re safely home boring your friends to death with your travel slide-night). And of course the city of Florence needs these rules, it’s a tiny city with wandering narrow lanes, it would be complete chaos if people were driving wherever they wanted. Better to scare us upfront with lots of complicated signage.

However, we had no problem getting out into the countryside. The car hire company is obviously used to this, and has the GPS set up to get you out of the city and on to your next destination. Easy. That’s when I started to relax. My god, it’s beautiful. No wonder people have been flocking here for centuries. It’s not just that the countryside is so cared for, so picturesque, but also that it is dotted with beautiful old buildings. The skyline is punctured by firs and cypress trees, the vines are manicured, the skies are clear blue with the occasional floaty clouds – the kind you see in the backgrounds of Renaissance paintings. The roads are narrow and sinuous, occasionally bounded by stone walls and running through tiny towns. It’s gorgeous.

We were heading for Greve in Chianti which was to be our base for the week. I’d chosen it partly because I hadn’t been there before, and partly because the airbnb we were staying in was a little old apartment right on the town square, and I liked the idea of being able to walk out the door and be part of village life. It also meant if we wanted to go out for dinner and fully appreciate the local wines (if you know what I mean) we wouldn’t have to drive home. It was a perfect choice.

Greve in Chianti from the balcony

The apartment was in a building right on the square (built in 1714!), it had a balcony which was shady in the afternoon, and the perfect place to relax and watch the world go by. The restaurants in the square were good, excellent truffle pasta, of course, (I know this because I ate it practically everyday) and only a short drive away in Montefiorale was an amazing restaurant - Ristorante la Castellana, where we had one of the best meals of our trip.

Actually, just to digress, Montefioralle was the most beautiful hill town we went to in Tuscany. I hadn’t actually heard of it before and we only went there for the restaurant, but it was truly stunning. I spent most of my time walking around trying to work out how we could move there permanently. It was a magical place, timeless, elegant, pleasing in all ways. And apparently it was the birthplace of Amerigo Vespucci. Who knew?

Montefioralle

Greve was a perfect home base, and after days of walking and sight seeing it felt lovely to just be. The apartment was above a butcher shop which is quite famous in the area, and quite unlike any butcher shop I’d been in before. We bought various cured meats from them, and local tomatoes and bread and wine from the supermarket to eat on out patio. Along with a good book each afternoon, it was a perfect place to relax, Over the top of the potted geraniums, I could watch bus loads of hot tourists being shown around the square (my square!). I felt a bit like a local (a lazy local, but still).

The famous butcher's shop in Greve

But of course, there’s a lot to see in Tuscany, and we had hired a car, so I couldn’t let it be days and days of sitting, enjoying ourselves. No! back out there. A day driving the S222 (beautiful tourist drive right through the heart of Tuscany) stopping at whatever little hill towns took out fancy, and a day trip to Siena.

(see part 2)