ONE: Travel to wonderland Use the rabbit hole. Go where the magic is: visit Disneyland or the Harry Potter Studios or Il Giardino dei Tarocchi, fly a kite on the beach, spend a week in an old mill in the middle of nowhere, camp in the desert and bathe in the Milky Way at night. Travel back to yourself. Recapture the world as it looked before you grew up and started being reasonable about things. TWO: Return to your happy place You must have one. A cabin, a lake, a farmhouse in a vineyard, a specific city in a specific season, a table with a particular view, maybe a person.…
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Tuscany wine to be: Mamma mia, Vendemmia!
September arrives, bringing with it the familiar anticipation of Vendemmia – the grape harvest in Toscana. The calendar, naturally, fills with the usual wonders: exclusive wine tastings, the joy of community harvest, explorations of the hallowed cantine, local fairs honouring Bacchus, intriguing mystery tours, and the pranzoni – those incredible, seasonal feasts. This year, however, due to particular climatic eccentricities and hot weather, vendemmia takes place sooner than usual. The forecast hints at a historically low yield, yet promises extraordinary grapes, albeit in very limited quantities. Heatwaves and extreme conditions have resulted in smaller, often atypical grapes, with significant quality variations even from one vineyard to the next. Follow the…
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TUSCANY #SINEQUANON: SEE? PERFECTION EXISTS
Plan on a minimum of two weeks here; this is not a place to fast-forward through. In Tuscany, you take your time, give in, and never resist temptation – this is where you learn the true meaning of slow travel. You really need the time to live it, not just visit it, and once you do it properly, you’ll find there’s no place quite like it. Intel Best time to visit: September. Transport: fly into Pisa or Florence and then rent a car – this is non-negotiable. Tuscany has the most beautiful medieval castles and villages, plus the most wonderful country roads. If you can’t freely move between those vineyards…