Fun Facts: Tuscany

{The 2019 Girl's Trip to Italy is fast approaching! A few years ago my sister and I organized a girls' trip to Rome and the Amalfi Coast; this time, there will be 32 of us living la dolce vita as we tour Tuscany and northern Italy. And because we don't want so much to visit the country as to live, breathe, taste and experience it, we hold information sessions at my house. #LaDolceVitaTravels #KnowBeforeYouGo}

The Black Rooster. Chianti, the well-known Italian red wine, is produced in Tuscany. But only from within a designated region between Florence and Siena can the wine be called Chianti Classico. When in Italy, look for the logo of the Chianti Classico Wine Consortium, a black rooster on a white background surrounded by a burgundy seal.

Famous movies shot in Tuscany: A Room with a View (Florence), Life is Beautiful (Arezzo), The Gladiator (Val d’ Orcia), Tea with Mussolini (San Gimignano), The English Patient (Montepulciano), Hannibal (Florence) Under the Tuscan Sun (Cortona), Twilight (Montepulciano).

Pinocchio. In 1883, a Florence born man named Carlo Collodi wrote the book, The Adventures of Pinocchio.

Tuscany’s Hall of Fame: Dante (The Divine Comedy), Fibonacci (Fibonacci Sequence), Galileo, Michelangelo, Leonardo, Brunelleschi (the Dome of the Duomo in Florence), Botticelli (The Birth of Venus), and Giotto all hailed from Tuscany. As did Amerigo Vespucci, the explorer who gave his name to the new continent, America. And there are many, many more ...

Italiano. The Italian language which is spoken today is actually based on the Tuscan dialect, dating back to the Renaissance period.

Birthplace of western musical tradition. In Florence in the mid-16th century, the Florentine Camerata got together and started experimenting with putting ancient Greek myths to music on the stage. This was the origin of the very first operas.