Seven days in the Tuscan Hills _ wine, food, friendship, and the Italian way of life, published on 20/09/2026, Blog number 50, nguptatravelscrapbook.blogspot.com

Seven days in the Tuscan Hills _ wine, food, friendship, and the Italian way of life, published on 20/09/2026

Blog number 50,   nguptatravelscrapbook.blogspot.com

Tasting wines on wine estates and motoring along avenues lined with olive groves and cypress trees capture the essence of Tuscany. Local legend says that when Venus rose from the waves, seven precious stones fell from her tiara, creating islands along the Tuscan coast where wine and olive farming took hold.

Quoted from The Lonely Planet guide.

Visiting a local Vineyard  at Colle Bereto, Radda in Chianti

Why was Tuscany our first choice for a group holiday for six friends? I guess it is experience-rich, with a running tally of pleasurable moments putting Tuscany in all time travel's hall of fame. One of Tuscany's calling cards is its mind-bending scenery: sumptuous, extravagantly green, undulating farmland that looks like a real painting. 

Vinod & Paven checking the grape fermentation. 

Hillsides grooved with twisty rural roads and lined with pointed, tapered cypress trees are as iconic of Tuscany as pizza is of Italy as a whole. Stately churches, humble chapels, rustic farmhouses, occasional brown stone-walled villas, and circles of trees perched just so form resplendent, vibrant tableaus.

A typical Tuscan scenery

Tuscany is more than just its stunning landscapes. According to a local magazine, Tuscans view themselves as inheritors and stewards of a rich legacy that has celebrated beauty for centuries 🌟. This appreciation for beauty is embedded in Tuscany's very essence. Every tree planted 🌳, every road rebuilt, and every place restored is done with careful consideration, not just for practical economic reasons but also for aesthetic appeal.

Map of the Chianti wine region 

Al fresco dining options abound throughout the region 🍽️. You can find patios, terraces, pergolas, elevated seating, cosy alcoves, stone benches, narrow pathways, sidewalk cafés, and arched terraces that harmoniously blend with the surrounding architecture. The small main streets in each hamlet are lined with pizza houses 🍕, coffee and wine bars 🍷, ice cream shops 🍦, bakeries, cheese and olive oil delicatessens 🧀, and small patisseries that proudly showcase their best products 🍰. All these places are filled with locals and tourists alike.

Hubbies: Paven, Vinod and Arvind from left to right

Six friends, seven days and the magic of Tuscany:

Some holidays you enjoy, and others become memories you keep talking about long after you return home. Few destinations have a richer history and landscape to draw on for inspiration than Tuscany. Tuscany offers writers, painters, artists, and actors locations and scenery to research, write about, or photograph. It did the same to us six friends. Tuscany holds mythical status for travellers for a reason. Between the iconic cypress-lined driveways, medieval hilltop hamlets, and the world-famous wine regions, it feels like a real place and looks more like a living painting.

Picture against a 100-year-old olive tree.

Few regions capture the imagination quite like Tuscany, a landscape defined by rolling green hills, historic private estates, and an elite viticultural tradition passed down through generations. To experience Tuscany's true essence, one must balance the cultural gravity of Renaissance masterpieces with the countryside's quiet luxury.

After extensive research, we booked a villa deep in Tuscany's picturesque countryside for a seven-night stay. A villa holiday in Tuscany combines slow-paced countryside living with historic architecture, cruising vineyards, and world-class wines. Our chosen villa in the classic Chianti region was a stone-walled heritage property with three bedrooms, each with an ensuite bathroom. It had a fully furnished kitchen, outdoor furniture for relaxing, and a lovely swimming pool.

Most of the time, holidays focus on visiting famous sights, but other times they are about slowing down, enjoying good food and wine 🍷, laughing with friends 😂, and realising the journey between two places can be just as memorable as the destination. Our week in Tuscany was much more like that.

Tuscan countryside 

We flew from Gatwick, London, to Florence ✈️, picked up our rental cars 🚗, and headed into the Tuscan countryside, first reaching a small hamlet called Radda in Chianti. We bought groceries from a local supermarket, which was an experience in itself. The deli counter was filled with locally produced specialities instead of branded items. These included ready-made dishes, large tubs of fresh cheeses, artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, and eggplants—all completely submerged in local olive oil 🫒—as well as cold cuts. They also offered regular freshly prepared dishes like arancini, baked lasagna, polpette (meatballs), roasted vegetables, and pasta tossed with ragù. The local fruits and veggies were another experience, coming in different sizes, shapes, and colours, including tomatoes, courgettes, lemons, chillies, avocados, etc.

From there, we drove along the tortuous countryside roads encircling the famous Chianti hills to reach Galenda, where we had booked our villa. Driving these tortuous roads was difficult, especially at night, as we were driving on the right-hand side of the road, unlike in the UK.

Roadside display of locally grown chillies

Our villa became our home for the next seven days. This was particularly lovely: having a base rather than moving from hotel to hotel. Every morning we woke up to a gorgeous sunrise and knew we had a beautiful day ahead, and every evening we returned to the villa, our own little corner of Tuscany. Six of us travelled together in two rental cars, planning to explore local places, try restaurants, and, most importantly, debate where to eat and drink!

The first evening was spent buying local groceries at a local superstore, settling in the villa, and then getting ready to eat out at a recommended restaurant. That al fresco dinner was especially enjoyable, with local breads, olive oil tasting, wine, and fresh fish, and it ended with the much-desired tiramisu. The restaurant sat high above street level, with outdoor tables set with fairy lights and scented candles. We sat for a few hours while enjoying the local wines and fish.

Extra virgin olive oil tasting in Malborghetto restaurant in Lecchi in Chianti

The ultimate dolce Vita Experiences that we loved:

Mornings filled with fresh Italian flavours:

One of the joys of staying in a villa was the opportunity to cook and enjoy leisurely breakfasts together. Instead of hurrying to a hotel breakfast, we would wake up to fragrant morning masala chai ☕ or coffee, followed by a delicious cooked breakfast featuring scrambled eggs 🍳, cold cuts of meat, fresh Italian bread drizzled with virgin olive oil 🥖, fruit yoghurts 🍓, fresh fruit 🍉, and more coffee ☕. 

Setting the table for breakfast at the villa

There was something wonderfully simple about sitting together in our pyjamas 🛌 in the morning, savouring fresh food and planning our day. Even breakfast became an integral part of the holiday experience. I noticed that we didn't turn on the television at all during our stay—it's hard to believe! This relaxed lifestyle embodies the Tuscan way of life, which values slow living, appreciation for beauty, family traditions and community festivals.

Having a home-cooked dinner at the villa

Exploring the Renaissance magic of Florence

Our visit to Florence was a highlight of our trip. After parking our cars on the outskirts of central Florence, we wandered through this extraordinary city, surrounded by Renaissance architecture, beautiful streets, and centuries of history.

The famous Florence landmark

A visit to the Accademia and Uffizi galleries, included in our early afternoon tour, gave us the chance to see Michelangelo's work and experience some of Florence's extraordinary artistic heritage. Italy has more than its share of great buildings, and many of them are in Tuscany. Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Brunelleschi and Donatello designed masterpieces here in Tuscany.

Waiting outside the Uffizi gallery on a v rainy day

And of course, no Florence sightseeing day is complete without stopping to eat out in one of Florence's plazas. The day we visited Florence, it rained torrentially in the afternoon. Though we sat under a pergola for lunch, we were drenched. It was a sight: the rain did not dampen the servers' spirits; they were virtually dancing in the rain, one hand holding an umbrella and the other carrying food, including wine glasses and bottles, to serve the customers. It was a sight to memorise forever.

Monila, myself and Anu outside our villa

Some days were planned around sightseeing, while others were simply about driving through the countryside, discovering a beautiful spot, stopping for lunch or coffee, and enjoying each other's company.

Pizza, pizza and more pizza.

If there is one thing we certainly didn't hold back on in Tuscany, it was food, including delicious pizzas, salads, pasta, fish, gelatos and tiramisu.

We enjoyed wonderfully large, thin-crust, paper-thin Italian pizzas, piping hot from the oven, that initially made the table look smaller because of their size. The pizzas are rolled out manually on a wooden table, then transferred on a wooden palette directly onto the screaming-hot, ash-dusted stone floor of the roaring wood-fired oven. Inside the oven's heat, the transformation is instant in less than two minutes; the chef rotates the pizza to ensure it cooks evenly. 

Pizza as described

Once the pizza is cooked, there is almost a theatrical moment as the server brings the large round pizza to the table, carrying it on a large tray on his shoulder. A flurry of phone cameras and clicking sounds follows as the server places the pizza on the table. No one plates it formally; it sits in the centre as a massive communal centrepiece. Steam rises from the bubbling mozzarella; the aroma of fresh basil and charred crust fills the air, and we all reach immediately for our first slice.

At Pizza Pie restaurant, savouring the extra-large pizza 

We also ordered wonderful pasta and fish dishes at another time, and fresh local ingredients like oil-drenched artichokes, olives, eggplant, and sun-dried tomatoes were served, giving us plenty of opportunities to sit together over a long meal and enjoy the moment.

The gelatos.

Oh my world!!! It would have been rude not to try them.

The ice cream shops here blend deep-rooted traditions with modern artisanal shops, offering flavours from dark chocolate to complex fruit-and-nut combinations. Because shops prepare gelato locally, on the same day, they tend to open after midday. Tuscan gelato flavours include locally produced saffron, pine nuts, hazelnuts, honey, berries, and more. In a typical gelato bar, the ice cream is stored in deep, flat metal wells with lids rather than piled up high in mounds.

Each place in Tuscany had its own character, and travelling together in our group of six made every journey part of the fun. Someone was always laughing, someone taking photographs, someone looking for the next ccafé and, of course, someone asking where we were going next! There is a reason everyone loses their mind over Tuscany. It really does look like a postcard, and yes, you'll want to stop every five minutes to take a picture of, let's say, a random cypress tree.

And finally

The wine-tasting festival in Greve, in Tuscany.

We explored the scenic winding roads of the Chianti Classico Wine region, stopping to explore Greve in Chianti and Radda in Chianti. Surrounded by vineyards and learning more about the local grapes and wines helped us appreciate how closely wine is connected to the Tuscan landscape.

We booked a classic vineyard tour at the historic estate Castello di Albola to try authentic Chianti paired with local pecorino cheese and cold cuts.

But a wine festival and tasting local wines was another experience altogether. After a week filled with Italy's tours and landscapes, the wine festival added another wonderful dimension to our trip. Good wines, Good food and six friends together- it was a fitting finale,

A glimpse of the wine festival in Greve in Chianti

Looking back, no single attraction made our Tuscan holiday so special. It was a combination of everything.

The villa deep in the countryside, cooking the meals together, the vineyards, the olive oil tasting, the enormous pizzas, the irresistible Italian ice creams, the wine festival and the surrounding towns and villages; the leisurely meals, and the laughter and jokes. Tuscany gave us beautiful scenery and wonderful food. Still, it also gave us something much more precious: a collection of shared memories that we'll be talking about for years to come. They are about sitting around a table with people you love, raising a glass of wine, looking at the Tuscan countryside, and thinking: Life doesn't get much better than this.

Vinod and myself 

Oh, by the way: What is Slow Food Tuscany

To protect the region from McDonaldization, Slow Food encourages interest in the local food we eat there. Here in Tuscany, retailers rely on local resources and work to reduce their carbon footprint and pollution, increasingly relying on sustainable development, including free public transport and organic farming. Tuscany's vegetable patches: see medieval veggies grow along the sides. Look for tomatoes, wild fennel, sweet red onions, artichokes, and zucchini flowers (stuffed and oven-baked), black cabbages, broad beans, chicory, chard, and large green tomatoes.

Pass the salt: Tuscan bread.

I noticed that the bread in Tuscany was unsalted 🥖. Later, I learned that Tuscan bread is typically made without salt, which gives it a somewhat bland taste we eventually came to appreciate. The lack of salt is intentional, as it lets the bread last about a week and complements the region's cured meats 🍖, a staple in many Tuscan dishes. We enjoyed Tuscany's rich flavours in dishes like bread and tomato soup 🍅, as well as Caprese salad.

Tuscan cheeses also enhanced the overall culinary experience.

Cheese-making was so significant in medieval times that it became a valuable skill included in dowries in Tuscany. Local Pecorino cheese, made from sheep's milk, is among the region's top cheeses. You can enjoy it at any time of day, served with unsalted bread, grated over pasta and soups, or drizzled with truffle oil on pizza. Pecorino cheese has a unique, slightly sweet flavour, attributed to sheep grazing on lush, herb-scented volcanic soil.

Other festive treats included chocolates 🍫, cantuccini, cannoli filled with chocolate 🍥, and the world-famous tiramisu 🍰. Unashamedly, we tried everything and enjoyed it to our heart's content ❤️.

And so?

Looking back, what made the holidays special wasn't Florence, Siena, or anywhere else; it was the Tuscan countryside, the food, the wine, the local traditions, and six friends sharing the experience.

Myself, enjoying a spectacular Tuscan view.

Trivia

In Tuscany, you can see the black rooster displayed in various sizes and colours as a landmark at traffic roundabouts 🚦 or near vineyards 🍇. 

Black rooster facing towards Tuscan hills.

This rooster symbol originates from a famous rivalry between the city-states of Florence and Siena over territorial disputes. To resolve these conflicts, they marked their territorial borders by placing a black rooster. Today, the Black Rooster (Gallo Nero) serves as the official trademark and symbol of Chianti Classico 🍷, representing a premium wine.

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Dr. ( mrs) Nirmal Gupta