Photographs of Tuscany, the Chianti, hilltowns, Val D'Orcia, olive groves, vineyards, San Gimignano, Lucca, Saturnia, Pietrasanta, Pienza and Siena

Photographs of Tuscany's Humble Unsung Beauties
Vineyards, Country Churches, Farm Roads, Cypress and Olive Groves

Italy is relatively tiny -- only the world's 70th largest country -- and yet is home to over half the planet's registered artworks. Still, despite the plethora of landmark statues, Renaissance paintings and ancient artefacts that abound everywhere you look, it is the country's humble, unsung beauties that stay in our mind's eye after we return home. The simple hillside villages and their cobblestone lanes; the rolling fields dotted with black-green cypress stands and silvery-green olive groves; the abandoned churches; the commonplace butcher shops and bakeries and fruit stands; the lovingly tended family grapevines whose vintages will never win an award but will always warm the heart as they go down..... These are the joys of Italy, and nowhere are they more abundant than in Tuscany. Here are a few snapshots from our own forays down every single dirt road and into every stone village in the region.