Famed for its association with Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight novels, Volterra is a walled town situated in the Pisa province, not far from Siena and Florence. It’s believed the author wanted a fictional city “Volturin” in Tuscany that had a square and clock tower from which to set the series. It’s understood Volterra was used in the Twilight series but for the New Moon film, the Volterra scenes were actually filmed in Montepulciano in Italy.
We’d travelled for years before POD arrived one snowy Christmas Day. While our holidays have changed since she was born back in 2010 (jungle sleepovers are definitely out), POD is just as much of an adventurer are we are. Suffice to say, we always travel together unless one of us has a press or work-based trip. We didn’t even realise until recently but over the past 7 years, we’ve never been away as a couple. While this is partly because we don’t have childcare locally, we genuinely enjoy going away as a family of three. Recently, however, we got to go to Verona in Northern Italy without the small one. Don’t get me wrong we missed her like crazy and it was weird at times but we had a good time. It turns out you can squeeze an awful lot into a weekend without a small one in tow too.
While we were in Tuscany, when we stayed at the stunning Villa Le Capanne from Bookings For You, we drove over to Florence. It was just over 1.5 hours away from our wonderful villa and somewhere we’d wanted to spend a day exploring. Some of us had visited before and others hadn’t but we were all keen to discover more of this beautiful city. We had two tours organised with LivItaly, the first was a private food tour and gelato making class. The other (to be covered in another post) a walking tour of the city which included a visit to the David.
I’ve recently returned from the most brilliant long weekend in Tuscany with 12 of my fellow family travel bloggers. We’d travelled there to review Country Relais and Spa Le Capanne (Villa Le Capanne) which is a magnificent property from Bookings For You set in the Tuscan countryside. We knew we’d have an incredible weekend but I don’t think any of us anticipated quite how great a trip it would be. The Giovannini family made us feel relaxed from the off, their hospitality and kindness exceptional, their Tuscan cuisine exquisite and their attention to detail impeccable. If that wasn’t enough, we laughed until our sides ached and our cheeks hurt, we danced and we sang. We packed a lot in too, exploring the likes of Volterra, Siena and Florence during our four-day stay. We had a truly memorable trip to Tuscany which was pretty much perfect from beginning to the end.
You know you’re going to have a great day when breakfast comprises of fresh coffee, Italian pastries, and Millionaires Shortbread. Melt in the mouth delicious they were too. The pastries were made by the Giovannini family who had travelled from Italy to show us how to make Tuscan food. The Millionaires Shortbread a Miranda Gore Brown (Great British Bake Off Finalist) recipe re-created by Jo Mackay from Bookings For You.
