Experience a truly enchanting holiday in one of my Tuscan Villas
Cooking courses organised into single lessons or over several days, also focused on certain themes: the art of making fresh pasta, how to cook pizza, etc..
Here as follow some useful addresses:
www.agridea.info
www.stendhaltours.it
www.tuscanmagic.com
Welcome to Castiglione della Pescaia!
Castiglione della Pescaia is a popular Tuscan seaside resort in coastal Maremma and is dominated by a fortress. It consists of hundreds of houses with a few thousand inhabitants. It is situated in a corner of coastal Maremma, between the sea and the hills.
Rocks reach to the sea and the beaches are bordered by extensive pine forests.
The fishing harbour is dominated by the mediaeval castle and the town is protected from the full force of the wind and sea by the island of Elba.
Nearby there are the marshlands of Diaccia and Botrona, which are very important for their bird life. While there you might want to visit the medieval village of Castiglione Castello, the Pineta del Tombolo, and the Riva del Sole e Punta Ala. Here you will enjoy all the tranquility of the sea.
Localities of historical-archaeological interest in Maremma:
Vetulonia: ancient Etruscan site nearby Castiglione della Pescaia
Roselle: Etruscan-Roman archaeological area near Grosseto
Populonia: Etruscan archaeological park near Piombino
The Tufa towns: Sovana, Sorano and Pitigliano
Localities of naturalistic interest:
Parco della Maremma: regional park of the Uccellina Mountains: www.parco-maremma.it
Carapax: Localities of naturalistic interest
Florence 1401, a competition was announced to design the baptistry North Doors.
Seven sculptors competed, including Lorenzo Ghiberti, Filippo Brunelleschi, Donatello and Jacopo della Quercia, with 21-year old Ghiberti winning the commission.
At the time of judging, only Ghiberti and Brunelleschi were finalists, and when the judges could not decide, they were assigned to work together on them. Brunelleschi’s pride got in the way, and he went to Rome to study architecture leaving Ghiberti to work on the doors himself.
It took Ghiberti 21 years to complete these doors.
These gilded bronze doors consist of twenty-eight panels, with twenty panels depicting a biblical scene from the New Testament.
The eight lower panels show the four evangelists and the Church Fathers Saint Ambrose, Saint Jerome, Saint Gregory and Saint Augustine. The panels are surrounded by a framework of foliage in the door case and gilded busts of prophets and sibyls at the intersections of the panels. The doors in the baptistery are a copy of the originals which are in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo.
The Tuscan hills, undoubtedly the symbol of Chianti, are an undulating landscape of greens and yellows. Beautiful and majestic Cypress trees and houses dot the hills. Delicious Italian cuisine in many Chianti area restaurants awaits you. The kindness of the people will make your experience one to remember. And let’s not forget the amazing wines!
Have you ever tasted the “trippa alla fiorentina”? It’s a typical strong tuscan plate flawor.
Ingredients:
Florentine trippa (already boiled )
oil
onion
carrot
celery
ripe tomatoes chopped
salt and pepper
parmesan
butter
Preparation:
You can buy alredy boiled trippa:
wash well, cut into strips and put it to drain. In a pan with oil, fry the chopped onion, carrot and celery, add the trippa, ripe tomatoes chopped, salt and pepper, and cook with the lid for half an hour, possibly by wetting with water if see that it dries too much. At the end sprinkle the trippa with parmesan and butter, mix again, wait a few minutes before serving.