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Tuscany as seen from the window of a house

#TuscanyFromHome: ideas for traveling while staying put

Online exhibitions, recipes and much more to bring a taste of Tuscany to your home

There are many ways to travel, and if your dream is a vacation in Tuscany, here are some ideas to start discovering it from home. Through music, flipping through the pages of a book, sipping a glass of wine or perhaps cooking some special dishes in family.
While waiting for the chance to visit the wonders of this land live, here are the many online resources for enjoying Tuscany wherever you are in the world.

Contents
  • 1.
    Museums ad online exhibitions
  • 2.
    Cinema and documentaries
  • 3.
    Food and wine
  • 4.
    Music
  • 5.
    Reading
  • 6.
    Video games
  • 7.
    For children

Museums ad online exhibitions

Spring of Botticelli
Spring of Botticelli
Santa Maria della Scala
Santa Maria della Scala - Credit: José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro

To share and admire the much beauty of our country online, here are some examples of the temples of Tuscan art.

The Uffizi Gallery provide different tools to discover the treasures of the collection thanks to the HyperVisions section.

The Galileo Museum in Florence has a vast section that hosts "Virtual Exhibitions": interesting insight into the life and scientific discoveries (and more) about some of the greatest figures of the past, from Amerigo Vespucci to Leonardo da Vinci.

Google Art Project, the Google platform dedicated to art and culture, allows you to explore the rooms of Santa Maria della Scala in Siena, the ancient hospital for pilgrims on the Via Francigena, the Palazzo Vecchio Museum in Florence and Textile Museum in Prato.

It is not a real museum, but it will still leave you speechless. We are talking about the Via Francigena, the great communication route of the past that, crossing Tuscany, combines culture, history, beauty and food and wine curiosities. On Google Street View, you can take a virtual journey to experience a preview of the Way.

The University of Pisa Herbarium collection, within the Botanical Museum of the University of Pisa, is also accessible virtually.

Finally, the Little Museum of Diaries and the National Diary Archive of Santo Stefano Parish Church, in collaboration with Rai Radio3 and Giulio Einaudi Editore, offer the initiative "Manuale di sopravvivenza". Mario Perrotta, one of the most significant voices of contemporary Italian theater, gives voice and body to Vincenzo Rabito's Terra matta, the memoirs of a semi-illiterate railway worker spanning an entire century that became a publishing case in 2007.

Cinema and documentaries

Film buffs might like to take a look at our page dedicated to films set in Tuscany that contains dozens of proposals: from the cult movie James Ivory’s A Room with a View to Ron Howard’s recent blockbuster, Inferno, Stealing Beauty by Bernardo Bertolucci, up to Federico Fellini's masterpiece, 812.

But that's not all. The Istituto Luce in Rome through its archives that can be consulted online makes available thousands of hours of films, documentaries and entertainment. Many videos were made in Florence and Tuscany: the Tour of Italy in 1950, the solar eclipse in 1961 or the bursting of the wagon in Florence in 1940.

Food and wine

Pici
Pici - Credit: Giulia Scarpaleggia

There is no better way to feel like Tuscany than by experimenting with typical recipes in the kitchen! You can start with a plate of pici and continue with fragrant and fragrant cantuccini! Lots of tasty inspirations and the Tuscanycious Playlist to dive into the video recipes!

Wine lovers will enjoy the 12 episodes of the tutorial on Visit Tuscany "Tuscan Wine for Beginners": 12 videos to learn about and taste Tuscan wine, in the company of sommelier Andrea Gori.

Finally, from the website of Vetrina Toscana - the regional project that works to promote traditional cuisine through a network of restaurants, food stores and producers - you can download the ebook "Storie di Piatti" for free: a concentration of anecdotes and preparations that tell the gastronomic roots of the area.

Music

Discovering the notes of Tuscany's great composers is a fascinating way to learn about the history of music since ancient times: starting with Giacomo Puccini and Pietro Mascagni to contemporary artists such as Bocelli, Nada, Gianna Nannini, Baustelle and Negrita, immersing yourself in the sounds will be fun and educational!

Reading

Ancient books
Ancient books - Credit: jarmoluk

Thanks to Tuscany, Beautiful Everywhere - the crowd storytelling website dedicated to all Tuscan municipalities, which collects nearly 300 stories, among tales, legends and curiosities - it will be possible to meet authors of the caliber of Margaret Mazzantini, Marco Vichi, Marco Malvaldi and many more.

By downloading the author's itineraries, you can go on a discovery of beauty through the great artists, poets, musicians, scientists, politicians and revolutionaries who over the centuries were born or lived in Tuscany, leaving indelible traces of their passage and making this land famous throughout the world.

Video games

Video gamers can explore Tuscany through adventures on smartphones. Test your knowledge of Tuscany with the Tuscany, Everywhere Beautiful game; if you prefer crossword puzzles instead, here are our Tuscany-themed ones.
In addition, here are a few apps for adults and children, which dive into the history and places loved by the Etruscans and Medici: The Medici Game, Murder at Palazzo Pitti takes you on a tour of the Pitti Palace to solve a long series of enigmas and secrets kept fo centuries in the Medici residence.
Beyond our lives takes you on a treasure hunt around Cortona, Volterra, Populonia and Vetulonia.
Mi Rasna - Io sono etrusco is a strategy video game that accompanies users on an exploration of Ancient Etruscan civilization, while Time Tales - gli Etruschi is a fun and educational adventure for children, which takes players back in time to the height of the Etruscan era.

For children

Galileo Museum Florence
Galileo Museum Florence - Credit: Seth Snyder
On the Galileo Museum website there is a series of educational tools to explore, through play, some of the history of science topics.
Finally, younger children can travel through time with the audiobook The Vase of Concord, an Etruscan adventure for children from 5 to 12 years old. The tale is divided into six installments available in Italian, English and German.