Autor: Charlotte Hill
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Every wine-focused corner of Tuscany seems to get slotted into a hierarchy sooner or later, and Montepulciano has spent decades sitting just below Montalcino in that pecking order — „the other big red town,“ the one people visit second, after Brunello. That reputation undersells it considerably. Montepulciano produces Vino Nobile, one of only four Tuscan…
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Of all the hill towns scattered across Tuscany’s wine country, Montalcino occupies a category of its own. This is not a stop you add to a Chianti day trip almost as an afterthought — it’s a destination in its own right, built almost entirely around a single, exceptional wine: Brunello di Montalcino, widely considered Italy’s…
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Ask a wine-focused traveler about Chianti and nine times out of ten they mean Chianti Classico, the famous black-rooster zone stretching between Florence and Siena. Fair enough — it earns the attention. But tucked into the hills northeast of Florence, in the opposite direction from the crowds, sits a much smaller, much quieter sub-zone that…
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Say the word „Chianti“ to most travelers and you’ll get a vague image: a straw-wrapped bottle on a red-checkered tablecloth, maybe a rooster logo they half-remember from a wine list. That image is decades out of date, and it does a disservice to what is genuinely one of the most serious, most rewarding wine regions…
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Ask most people where to drink wine in Italy and you will hear a dozen different answers: Piedmont for Barolo, Veneto for Prosecco, Sicily for something sun-drenched and volcanic. All fair. But if you only have one region to build a trip around, Tuscany, with Florence as its beating heart, makes the strongest case of…
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Long before wellness retreats and fitness influencers made „movement“ a lifestyle buzzword, Lake Como’s elite were already living it. Tennis courts appeared in the grand hotels lining the shores back in the early 1900s, arriving alongside the same crowd that brought motor yachts, seaplane races, and championship golf to this stretch of water. The sport…
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Sicily does not do luxury the way the rest of Italy does. There is no single postcard address here, no one town that carries the island’s entire reputation for beautiful stays, the way Positano does for the Amalfi Coast or Portofino does for Liguria. Instead, the best hotels are scattered across four coastlines and one…
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This post contains affiliate links. If you book through them, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Staying Connected Abroad: The Ultimate eSIM Guide for the Modern Luxury Traveler There is a particular kind of frustration reserved for the traveler who has just landed somewhere extraordinary, whether it is a…
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Sicily’s coastline runs for over 1,000 kilometres, and almost none of it looks the same twice. Volcanic black rock gives way to limestone cliffs, limestone gives way to shallow turquoise lagoons, and every few kilometres another cove appears that looks, from a boat deck, entirely uninhabited. This is what separates Sicily from the rest of…
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June 2026 · Charlotte Hill Why Taormina is the most compelling town in Sicily – and why the most discerning travellers, wine lovers, yacht crews, and property investors keep coming back. There is a particular kind of place that gets under your skin the first time and simply does not let go. Taormina is that…