2 Weeks in Italy: Self Catering in Tuscany or Umbria
 

My girlfirend and I are going to Italy for 2 weeks in June. We are interested in wine and good food (we are vegetarian, but eat eggs, cheese and fish). Ideally we would like to find a self catering place in a small village, possibly in Tuscany or Umbria, or maybe Piedmont, where we can buy local food in the market and largely cook at home, enjoying excellent wines. We would like to be able to walk to dinner. We like to go for long walks.

We fly in and out of Rome, and would be happy to spend a couple of day there.

We are looking for advice on places to stay (both the village or town, and the apartment or acommodation), and also restaurants and possibly wineries and sites to visit. We would like to explore some castles.

We would also appreciate advice on transportation. Should we use the train or drive, or both?

Thanks.

I suggest you try posting this in the Slow Travel Italy forum. There are people there who are experts when it comes to the type of arrangements you're looking for.

http://slowtalk.com/groupee/forums/a/frm/f/862600685

Welcome to FT.

Italians tend to buy for home cooking, and serve home cooking in most of the restaurants in a given city. not much fish in florence or milan or piedmont or tuscany(have not been to coastal tuscany other than livorno, which does have fish).

italians like their fish very fresh, and in many places, it is very expensive.

stick to coast lines for fish. genova, venice, livorno. lots of fish in bologna for some strange reason.

usually considered to do small towns with car, large with train. tourists cannot even bring cars into many of the cities, but at the same time, you cannot get around chianti on public transportation, and it's too far to walk.

We've been to Italy 10 times over the past 6 years and have stayed twice at a wonderful 'agriturismo' (working farm / winery / hotel with self-catering). the site is http://www.barberani.it/

From Rome it is about a 2.5 hour drive north and was very central to a few great sites. For a honeymoon it would be a quiet, tranquil and relaxing.