It has taken me awhile to get to this final post. It seems when we get back into the U.S., we get busy doing many things around the house - although, it really only took about a week to get everything organized and going again. Anyway, I have a few final pictures from Tuscany, and from there we spent five nights in Rome (enough time to get our COVID-19 tests) before heading back to the USA.

While we were staying in Pienza, we visited several of the small towns surrounding the Val d’Orcia. While Montepulciano and Montalcino are well known for their wines, some of the smaller towns were just as beautiful. We visited San Giovanni d’Asso, which is in the heart of Truffle country. We hunted for truffles here about 6 years ago, and enjoyed seeing this small town again, and driving from there to visit Montisi. We visited Montisi a few times during this trip - we found a great wine bar called Portofranco where we enjoyed lunch and sampling wines with Ilaria as our host. She was amazing in her knowledge of the wines and had a fabulous selection - not only Italian wines, but wines from all over Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, and Greece.

And, as a side note - while in Montisi, we met the stone carver who creates these fabulous pieces of art that can be seen outside the door of nearly every business and many homes as well. I should have taken pictures of all of them and created a separate album. This one was of course outside the home of the town baker.

Another small town we visited was Radicofani which is toward the south end of the Val d’Orcia. But it can be seen from almost every other town, as it sits on top of one of the tallest points in the valley. This town is on the route from England to Rome - the Via Francigena - and you occasionally would see people who were hiking the route. The castle on top of the hill was the home to Ghino di Tacco, who was famous as a robber in the late 13th century. He developed a reputation as a sort of “Robin Hood”, as he would only rob from those who he felt could afford it, and would always leave his victims with enough to survive. And he would sometimes host a dinner for his victims as well!

Time to head to Rome - a great place to spend a few final days before heading back to the U.S. We visited many of the same places we had seen before -Trevi Fountain; the Spanish Steps and others. And we had several great meals while we were here. We of course love the fried artichokes, and pasta. Found a new restaurant (to us) as we walked, and also enjoyed an evening at an Irish pub with some music (might be a sign of future travel??).

We walked one morning to the Vatican area, an then spent the afternoon walking the Trastevere district, visiting the beautiful Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere. This was an incredible building and one of the oldest churches in Rome, with parts of the structure dating back to around 340 AD. The mosaics throughout the church are beautiful.

After a few refueling stops along the way we headed back to our hotel, stopping to get our pre-flight Covid tests at the pharmacy nearest our hotel (you could get this test at maybe 100 local pharmacies, with results in about 30 minutes and a cost of about $20). A very easy process.

So that’s about it for another summer. We tried (had to) be flexible this year as a result of Covid issues, and actually found we enjoyed staying longer in each region/country. We met many fabulous people along the way and are extremely grateful for having the ability and health to allow us to do this. We’re already starting to plan next summers adventures. We have truly enjoyed every place we have visited - we certainly will always go back to some places we love, but we will also push ourselves to venture out to new destinations as well.

Hope everyone is well and enjoying the holiday’s. Again, sorry for taking soooo long to get to this final post, but hope you enjoyed all of these through the summer, and the various photo albums, videos, etc.

All the best,

Tim & Eileen