Lost Weekend #1 Tuscany

Having visited the area a number of times I thought I'd write a little bit about my experiences and share some of my knowledge. Obviously the main City in Tuscany is Firenze (Florence) but there is far more to this part of Italy than meets the eye.

I usually stay in Empoli which is halfway between Pisa and Florence but is situated on the main trainline making it a cheaper option than both Florence and Pisa which tend to cater for the tourist market. In general the standard of accommodation will be poorer in the more touristy areas as it is easier to fill the hotels.

The  train journey east from Pisa is excellent if you're a groundhopper (anorak!) like me. There are numerous football pitches/grounds in various states of disrepair, making them all the more beautiful in some ways.

The hotel I have used on previous trips was booked via ebay but can be booked directly via the website. It is primarily a business hotel however it is both modern and clean (and cheap!) and is only 1300 metres from Empoli station.

With it's cobbled streets and town square, Empoli is fairly typical of many Italian towns but pleasant nonetheless.

There are plenty of places to eat in Empoli but the best we found was only yards from the hotel and was called Bar Meeting. Signed football shirts are hung all over this friendly bar and the food is excellent. The service is also fantastic and the staff cannot do enough to help.

Siena is one place that is well worth a visit. Not as touristy as it's Tuscan counterparts which is a good thing in my eyes, Siena is the home of the Palio, a horse race run through the streets at breakneck speed that people queue for days to see. We arrived at around lunchtime and walked up from the station to the main town (about 2 miles) which offers some spectacular views of the Tuscan countryside. After wandering around the cobbled streets and coming across this shop at Via del Paradiso 35 where I picked up a Mentalita Ultras/80s Casuals

t- shirt we decided to go for a drink and a bite to eat. There are plenty of bars and restaurants including an excellent Irish Pub which serves Ichnusa Lager from Sardinia as well as a free buffet in the afternoons. After a few drinks there we wandered down into the main Piazza del Campo. Plenty of restaurants to choose from and the bars never seem to close, we eventually left at about 2am although trying to negotiate the narrow cobbled streets was something akin to climbing Everest in flip flops! We found a hotel (having missed our train back to Empoli) and after submitting our passports settled in for a night in what can only be described as a retro room.

Pisa is obviously famous for the leaning tower and to be honest can be seen in half a day. For the groundhoppers, the home ground of Pisa is about 500 metres from the tower and the floodlights are clearly visible. The tower is a fair walk from the station and is signposted all the way. Food-wise I would avoid the area nearest the Tower and head back towards the station where you will notice small piazzas/squares which represent much better value for money and more authentic Italian dishes. We had Wild Boar tagliatelle and a bottle of wine for just over 20EU. As with many Italian cities, beware of pickpockets and street sellers as they are especially prevalent in places like this. Pictured below is the tower but if you look closely, you can see the stadium floodlights!

Finally, Florence. Home of great painters, sculptors, musicians and la Viola, AC Fiorentina. Florence is a spectacular city with numerous galleries however rather than spend a day queuing to see one gallery I would advise just walking around and taking in the surroundings as there is plenty to see without queueing for hours on end. As a major tourist destination, Florence is what you'd expect, noisy and bustling, full of coach trippers falling over themselves to buy an I love Florence t-shirt for little Johnny back home. Ignore these fools and look for the San Lorenzo market where you can buy good quality leather goods as well as scarves, ties and pretty much anything else. There is also the impressive Ponte Vecchio bridge which is chock full of jewellery shops and leather wares. As the pound is as weak as a sparrow, most of the shopping I did was purely window shopping, however there is an out of town outlet village located in  if you have the time: The Mall. There is also a McArthur Glen about 30km from Florence: McArthur Glen Barberino. If you're looking for food there are plenty of restaurants offering a tourist lunch which is usually a pizza/pasta dish and drink for 10EU per head, not bad value and nice and quick. If you want to get to the Football Ground (Artemio Franchi) take the train to the Campo di Marte and once alighting you ground should be easy to find! There are numerous bars around the stadium that serve beer for half the price of the city centre which are obviously a lot quieter when there isn't a game on. 2 bars worth looking out for located in front of the main entrance are Bar Marisa and Bar Stadio, both of which sell tickets for Fiorentina home games and are hotbeds of football chat!