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Tag: Tuscany

Italian leather workshop with handmade bags and tools

My private Italy: Italian leather and the Italians behind it

In Florence, the streets still remember who used to work in them. Walk out of Piazza Santa Croce towards the river and read the white marble plaques on the corners: Via delle Conce, the street of the tanneries; Via dei Conciatori, the street of...
White and black Italian truffles on a wooden board

My private Italy: His Majesty, the Truffle

  • Blog
I remember the first time a guide let me hold a white truffle before it went into the scale. It was heavier than I expected, cold, faintly damp, and it smelled like nothing I could name — garlic, hay, wet earth, something almost animal...
Crowd filling Piazza del Campo before the Palio

My private Italy: The Palio, dreaming twice a year in Siena

The Palio di Siena is a horse race run twice a year, on 2 July and 16 August, around Piazza del Campo. Ten of the city’s seventeen contrade compete, their jockeys riding bareback for three laps, and the prize is a painted silk banner, the...