Side Trips: Sorano, Tuscany

 

The freedom of a rental car trip through Tuscany was a welcome breath of fresh air after leaving steamy, crowded places like Venice and Florence.  It also turned be the best part of our trip, offering some spectacular food and lodging at cheaper rates than we'd been paying in Venice and Florence. 

In Sorano, we spent two nights in a medieval stone castle, surrounded by a Renaissance era fortress that is built over an old Etruscan mountaintop settlement.  Our room was located in same living spaces that castle owners, for centuries, had reserved for their own families.  Big casement windows and high ceilings caught the natural breezes, and offered panoramic views of the streets below and the Tuscan landscape beyond.  The archway leading into the castle's courtyard, dates from the First Century AD, but the town's Etruscan roots predate the Roman Era.

Giant bellows once used in an
underground weapons forge.

 

Connecting tunnels carved into the rock beneath the fortress were used for escape routes, stables, storage, the forging of weapons, and the manufacture of gunpowder.  There are several old buildings inside the walled fortress: one has been repurposed as a museum and another is being used as a music conservatory.  Our last night there, after a dinner in the countryside and a hand of cards in the courtyard, we could hear music from an open air concert in the town below.


Complimentary breakfasts with cappuccino, pastries,
prosciutto, croissants, Tuscan bread and cheeses.

Hotel della Fortezza, Sorano