BUONCONVENTO VILLAGE FESTIVALNe: Sagra della Val D'Arbia 2012

Join the daily neighborhood chat in Buonconvento

Certain things can't be reiterated often enough: Buonconvento is one of Tuscany's best kept secrets - stunning medieval town center, great restaurants and museums and hardly any tourists around!

If you are travelling Tuscany this week, the Sagra della Val D'Arbia (the yearly village festival) is one more reason for a stopover in the lovely town in the Crete Senesi (the stunning clay landscape south of Siena).

Events are on during the whole week, but Saturday and Sunday will be the time to visit if you are a lover of food and artisan markets. You'll also find live music, kids entertainment (on Sunday afternoon) and for the sporty ones a Mountain Bike ride by night with the locals.

But the festival wouldn't be called a sagra, if it didn't focus on one thing - Tuscan food! In fact the photo above is misleading. For once these neighbors won't have time for their daily chat. They'll be busy cooking up Tuscany's finest for you to taste.

SAGRA DELLA VAL D'ARBIA, September 22-30, 2012. The full program can be downloaded on Buonconvento's official website (in Italian only - I said this was off-the-beaten-path).

Buonconvento's medieval town center during former editions of the village festival

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Sant'Antimo abbey near Montalcino You don't have to be a catholic to remain spellbound by the eternal beauty of the Sant'Antimo abbey. The Tuscan church and monastery can turn a stubborn skeptic into a reborn spiritual. At least for the time of the visit.

SWIMMING, READING AND DINING IN BAGNO VIGNONI

Whilst the sell-out of tourist destination is a well known plague all through Italy, t here exists a tiny town in UNESCO Heritage Val d'Orcia which forgoes made in China souvenirs and just opened a bookshop instead. Bagno Vignoni is one of Tuscany's oldest tourist destinations. In fact the historic spa town has never been anything else than a tourist destination, and the ratio of inhabitants to visitors must always have been at least 1 to 10. Having looked after medieval pilgrims, ailing popes and saints ( St. Catherine of Siena used to live here for a while), Bagno Vignoni isn't tempted at all to put out plastic chairs or pizza takeaways for present day travelers. I used to live close to Bagno Vignoni and have fond memories of chasing my first -born around the town's main square which consists of a steaming hot water pool (a must-see sight for urban architects!). Our healthy mornings were usually finished off with a slice of fudge chocolate c

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About 40 minutes south of Siena and a bit over an hour from the Tuscan coast, Val d'Orcia lies to the east of the Maremma and to the west of Montepulciano and Umbria. The UNESCO world heritage site is made up by the territories of Montalcino, San Quirico d'Orcia (with historic spa town Bagno Vignoni ) , Pienza, Castiglione d'Orcia and Radicofani. The Orcia river crosses two more municipalities (Castel del Piano and my hometown Cinigiano ), where it divides the province of Siena from the province of Grosseto (Tuscany's two southernmost areas) before flowing into the Ombrone river. View VAL D'ORCIA MAP in a larger map

Mapping MONTALCINO

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