Those wheels of cheese were something else…both to ogle and to eat. Enjoy your visit to Rome (and Tuscany) and let us know if you’d like any other recommendations.

@pam: Very well said. Though this time, I don’t know that we were treated to as many pretty Italian girls and handsome Italian men on Vespas as we would have liked.

Like pearls to their grain of sand, clichés to their grain of truth.

@sarah: We did get married in Tuscany. And it was romantic, in a hopeless, wide- and starry-eyed sort of way.

Thank you for your compliments on the photos. But again, our hats go off to the people and to Mother Nature and the contours and shadows of the Tuscan landscape.

Funny you ask about Florentine steak. When we were married, the man running the agriturismo where we were staying tried to convince us to eat 2 pounds of Florentine steak each. We negotiated him to 1 pound of steak each. It was still too much, as we allude to in this piece:
https://uncorneredmarket.com/life-lessons-tuscan-wedding/

@Keith: I’m sure summer in Tuscany is beautiful, particularly when the fields are green. But there’s something about the glow of Tuscany in autumn that does me right. Not to mention, once you get past summer, the crowds begin to drop off. If your family chooses Tuscany in late summer/early autumn, the first three weeks of September are ideal. The temperatures are still pretty warm, the sunflowers are still alive, though fading, the sun still shines (late September and early October bring on the rain, like clockwork) and all the September festivals (sagre) are in full swing.

@Laura: I’m sure springtime in Tuscany is beautiful as well. Actually, just about any season. I actually harbor visions of holing up there in winter one of these years.

@Sonya: As a place to kick off a life together, Tuscany certainly worked for us. It was also just as much how we kicked it off, as where:
https://uncorneredmarket.com/life-lessons-tuscan-wedding/

@Lola: Thanks! Yep, those winding roads — some dating to the Estruscans, others to the Romans — make for a bit of a real-life roller coaster. But it’s all worth it.

@Don: Ah Tuscany and the wedding. One of those well-worn and deservedly dog-eared pages in the book of a life well-lived.

Regarding the desire to chase it all at once, I think everyone reading and commenting can identify with that.

Italy will always tug at the heart strings, even on the backs of the cheesiest of travel television shows. That’s just its way.

Your advice to deepen the experience by spending more time in fewer places is solid, but, alas, we failed. All of Tuscany and Umbria beckoned and we found ourselves dashing in all directions, almost unable to slow the pace that our aging systems were demanding. Perhaps next time.

Overstimulated and overfed we brought our weary bodies home to our excited dog and cat and to some badly needed routine rest. But we know the pattern now. When we least expect it, music will occur or a brief travel section will appear on TV. We will look – we will laugh and almost in unison we will say “I miss Italy”

It is a very diverse place of custom, culture, language (dialect) and food. It will never exhaust description. We are hooked. And it all began with family and friends and a wedding in Pienza. Thanks guys.