MAPPING TUSCANY

Looking for Tuscany related travel advice? Wondering when to visit, which city to spend an extra day in and what restaurant to avoid at all cost? I can provide local trip planning help for individual travelers and small groups, who plan to taste the best wine and dodge the worst meal.  Some Siena or Florence  tips are relevant for most visitors and can be easily found on the internet or right here on my blogs (e.g.  how to skip the Uffizi queue  and which organic  Brunello winery to visit) -  other recommendations for your stay in Tuscany will depend  on taste, age and interests of the traveler exploring our hills. TRIP PLANNING HELP IN TUSCANY For more local insight and  info about Map It Out's expert advice for your Tuscan itinerary send Katja an email (more about me here ). My t ailor-made tips for recommended sights, winery visits and booking service of hands-on activities or guided tours during  your holiday normally ...

Renaissance art, famous wine and perfect beaches are the first things that come to mind when talking about Tuscany. Lesser known is the region's Etruscan and Roman legacy. A shame if you consider that many of Tuscany's archaeology digs lie adjacent to beautiful hilltop towns and quite a few of the Etruscan museums are state of the art (at least for Italian standards). Less grand but also much lesser known than the Colosseum, these sites make for great off-the-beaten-path sightseeing all through Tuscany.  If anything  the problem is knowing where to start. Which is why I've pressed  British archaeologist Lucy Shipley for some expert advice on the matter.    Where in Tuscany are you digging? I dig at the site of Poggio Civitate, which is near the town of Vescovado di Murlo, about 20km south of Siena. Why on that particular hill? The Etruscan presence in the area was re-discovered by the Italian archaeologist Ranuccio Bianchi-Bandinelli in the 1920...

Tyrannosauras rex on the look out for its next pray. Yeah... I've sworn to myself that this blog would focus on Southern Tuscany, and on Southern Tuscany only. And as I'm never slow to break any good resolution I ever came up with, here's a post about Florence. It's Natural History Museum just didn't seem to get enough exposure on the web without me.  Right now (spring to autumn 2012) the museum sports a show on dinosaurs . Preferably you visit the museum once it is over. No, it isn't badly done. Not at all. It just had the same effect on me as Steven Spielberg's dinosaur movies. Unlike E.T., I still haven't been able to watch Jurassic Park in one go (and I'm normally not one to fall asleep during movies) . I can see that the  dinosaur triology gets five star votes from people who live on dinosaurs ,  but does it really work for anybody else? And it's not just me. Whilst my kids ask for mercy when I frighten them into sleep with sto...