Lovely Lucca – lovely lunch

I just wanted to share a little hedonism and a rather splendid lunch with you.

Lucca is a very beautiful town, everywhere you look there is something wonderful to take in. My recent trip to Tuscany ended there and I took the opportunity to see this amazing place. It is perfect to enjoy on foot as the centre is theoretically a car free zone – although some of the locals seem unaware of this fact and also appear to take very little care when riding a bike, but as long as you keep your wits about you this is a small price to pay.

Wine Map of Tuscany showing Lucca - click for a larger view

Lucca from the air - you can clearly see the walls and fortifications - click for a larger view

Tenuta di Capezzana – the beating heart of Carmignano

Tenuta di Capezzana

Carmignano is a village in Tuscany that produces D.O.C.g wines and my recent trip to Italy included a visit to the leading producer – Tenuta di Capezzana – which can boast a long and noble history.

Wine Map of Tuscany - click for a larger view

You can be forgiven for not having come across it before as it is a small wine region of barely 100 hectares and 20 producers in a beautiful valley 16 km west and slightly north of Florence.

It Shouldn’t Happen to a Wine Blogger – the perils & frustrations of blogging while on the move

The view from my hotel room in Florence - lovely, but no wifi!

I hope you can forgive me for writing a piece that is about the medium of blogging rather than my subject – wine, food and travel.

I do not really regard my Wine Page as a blog in the traditional sense as it is not a web diary, I hope my articles are more considered than that. However, I call it my blog by way of a shorthand explanation as to what it is. Therefore I am a wine blogger and that is sometimes a very frustrating thing to be.

When out and about it is often absurdly hard to stay connected and therefore to be able to publish articles. I find it very strange that it is so difficult, to me it defies logic. I have an excellent internet provider and wireless network at home, so surely hotels could have the same thing?

Lunch in Florence – or where is Obelix when you need him?

My trip to Tuscany started in Florence and I was in search of an authentic Tuscan lunch experience when I stumbled upon Trattoria Marione in the Via del Sole where it meets the Via Della Spada. Close your eyes and conjure up seemingly cliched images of Italian eateries, think Lady and the Tramp, and you know what it looks like; small tables rammed into a series of interconnecting rooms, none of them quite on the same level, red and white check table clothes, salamis hanging over the bar, whicker covered Chianti flasks on the tables – containing wine though, not candles.