I wanted to do a review of a few of our latest discoveries in Tuscany, however as I sit here on the hotel terrace in the winter sun, with my foot strapped up, lonely but well oiled, I can only review half the places I wanted to.

The good news is my Italian is improving day by day. I can now say ‘I fell down a hole in an old house, I think I’ve twisted my ankle’.!

Our first stop on our latest whirlwind tour of Tuscany was a tiny weeny village called Rivalto, not a place to wander round so much as there’s very little there, but a perfect hideaway for a few nights of Tuscan living, or a great base from which to explore further.

We found it on Airbnb, however it. is actually a small hotel, up a very, very steep (but short) driveway, consisting of around 15 rooms all dotted around the village, a swimming pool, a beautiful restaurant, and it even has a pizzeria with a ‘lift’ to take deliveries to the pool! I think we may have had the suite as it was more expensive than we expected for this time of year, however, nice if you want a special room, although it did look like a room where I could have had a lovely water birth!

La Ripadoro is where we stayed but they do have other rooms/properties too. We had flying visits to Volterra, San Gimignano but won’t review those until we’ve spent more time there. Both divine with lovely restaurants and local produce to buy.

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The next day we arrived at our ‘home’ for the next 3 days, in a tiny, but historical village that I’m not telling anyone the name of as it’s too small for anyone else to come to and I want to keep it to myself .

We took some time to explore Chianni, also a gorgeous traditional town, that was celebrating the festival of the wild boar that day, so we had to explore quickly or be stuck in a road block and left with no alternative but to try the stewed boar, grilled boar, boar with tagliatelle and boar soup for the rest of the day!

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This is where our trip together really ended, only because our friend took us to a house that she said had the potential to be converted into a beautiful and traditional one bedroom home. She omitted to tell us that it was more of a concrete four level tower with one room and one window on each level and no staircase (think Rapunzel), it also had big holes in the ground covered up with wooden planks, but nobody told me that either until it was too late. Italians eh!!

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