Villa Palazzetta | OUR BLOG

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Apr 29
1 min

You Can't Believe How Green It Is In Tuscany Now. Here's Why.

One of the many reasons we like coming to Tuscany, and especially the Val D'Orcia and Montalcino in spring, is that the rolling hills...

Mar 10
1 min

The Beautiful East Coast Of Italy On The Adriatic Sea.

None of the tourist guides talk much about the east coast of Italy. Mostly you hear about the Amalfi Coast or Cinque Terre on the west...

Feb 24
1 min

Olive Oil Heaven

In 2018 our olive orchard at Villa Palazzetta produced 100 liters of extra virgin gold. In 2019 Tuscany had an infestation of flies and...

Feb 21
1 min

What I Did Last October At Villa Palazzetta During Our Mandatory 14-Day Self Quarantine

This video is made from 39 still images selected from more than 500 cloud photos taken during our 14-day Covid self-quarantine at the...

Feb 14
2 min

Look Who Recently Came To (And Made) Dinner At Our Beautiful Villa.

Giada de Laurentiis, Bobby Flay and a big film crew spent a week filming an episode for their new series in September of 2019 (before...

Jul 2, 2020
2 min

Yes, There Is Life In Italy. And Our Garden Is Living Proof Of That. Thanks To Matteo And Lisa Jane.

Yes, there is life in Italy.

Mar 11, 2020
2 min

And Recently Voted One of the Ten Best Restaurants in Tuscany? Our neighbors at Locanda Demetra.

Our friends and neighbors at Locanda Demetra started their farm-to-table restaurant a few years back. It used to be easy to show up and...

Jan 26, 2020
2 min

Truffle Hunt! As in White Truffle in Central Tuscany. And No, We Can't Tell You Exactly Where.

This all started innocently enough. Lisa Jane's mom and dad, Linda and Mario, invited us to dinner at their house in Siena. Mario, or...

Dec 10, 2019
1 min

Our Hero. As in Chef Hiro.

Now we have two chefs to indulge our pleasures at Villa Palazzetta. First is our adopted nonna, Chef Paola, who makes traditional...

Nov 19, 2019
2 min

In Search of the Elusive "Wild" Tortellini in La Grassa, Otherwise Known as Bologna.

If you've never eaten Bolognese tortellini in brodo you simply must add this experience to your culinary bucket list.

Apr 23, 2019
2 min

A Birth In The Family

We bought Villa Palazzetta because of its incredible location only five minutes walk from the historic city center. We also bought it...

Apr 8, 2019
1 min

Welcome Home!

We arrived this spring on April 7th after visiting Matera, an ancient town in southern Italy that was just named one of the Cultural...

Apr 1, 2019
2 min

A Note From Our First Official Guests

In March our first official guests visited Villa Palazzetta. The note they left in our guestbook says it all. But Maryellen, one of the...

Nov 14, 2018
1 min

Our Ape Calessino

If you been to an Italian hill town then you've seen Piaggios. After WWII Piaggio invented this small engine, three wheel vehicle as an...

Oct 26, 2018
1 min

Olive Oil - Start to Finish

Another fall means another olive oil harvest. Matteo Turchi our fantastic groundskeeper did a fabulous job with this year's olive crop....

Oct 18, 2018
1 min

To Elba Under Sail

In October several of took a lovely day trip on a 45 foot sailboat from Portiglioni to Elba. It was a perfect day. We left Montalcino at...

Sep 18, 2018
1 min

Caprese!

Caprese is what the Italians call a mozzarella and tomato salad. Sounds so simple, right? Well, not exactly. Suffice it to say that there...

Sep 16, 2018
3 min

Palio, August 2018 - Lupa wins! (And we were there.)

When Lee and I went to Montalcino this last August, we had a job to do. We had to photograph our newly finished Villa Palazzetta for the...

Sep 16, 2018
1 min

Pizza Night at Villa Palazzetta

When we restored Villa Palazzetta one of the things that was on the top of our list was a real wood-burning pizza oven. Fortunately our...

Feb 6, 2018
1 min

Our First Olive Harvest

Last October we had our first olive harvest as the new owners of Villa Palazzetta. The harvest took place in late October. We harvested...

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