Tuscany Disney

12 October

Look at this photo. Doesn't it look like I am the only person in the whole square?

Photos can be so deceiving. In reality, we had just come out the side door of the Duomo - the main cathedral - in Florence, where we jostled around with about 10,000 other people (I'm not exaggerating) to see the frescoes, admire the dome, the tiled floor, etc. Now this is a spectacularly beautiful cathedral - probably more beautiful than York Minster and certainly more elaborately decorated for something the same age. It is quite stunning. But the atmosphere was not of a house of worship. It was of an attraction; something to tick off a list, something to photograph. It was full of American tourists with their bum bags and sneakers and their socks pulled up, and groups on organised tours following the flags of their tour guide.

"Tourism is destroying the world", said Sandy as we walked down the street. He's formed this view from the places we have visited that have been just crawling with tourists, some of which have lost all of their atmosphere and beauty - the atmosphere and beauty people come there for - because of the sheer volume of tourists trekking through to see the sights. It's a vicious cycle. And while it could be said that tourism sustains many of the economies of these places; sooner or later it seems to us it will become a reason for people not to go to them. We're starting the backlash right now, ourselves.

San Gimingnano is a good example of what I'm talking about. This is a place of which everyone says: "Oh, you have to go there; it's amazing!" It's the famous mediaeval hilltop town of towers - 13 of them - whose skyline has stayed the same since the middle ages. There are priceless artworks and an incredible cathedral there. But we had been warned it was a zoo. We met a hard case American woman in our village a few days ago who told us she had hated it. "It's like Disneyland", she said. But driving in, there was no traffic on the road, so we thought perhaps she'd just had a bad day.

Sadly, no. the traffic was all in the car parks, ringing the town, already. San Gimingnano is definitely beautiful. But whatever its attractions, we did not stay long enough to see them. After I'd queued at the tourist office for the same map that everyone else in the piazza was poring over, I asked Sandy what he felt like doing. "I feel like getting out of here", he said. And so we did. As far as we could tell, there were no local people anywhere; it was a town of tourists. Which is not what we came here for.

Siena was somewhat better; we sat by the city wall overlooking the surrounding farmland and olive groves and ate an impromptu lunch of bread and roast pork we had bought earlier in the day at the Certaldo market. There were many tourists there too, especially in the Piazza del Campo, where the famous horse races are held. But the tourists were diluted amongst the local people in a larger town. Somehow it wasn't quite so bad. And there were at least signs of local work, commerce and life going on.

I approached Florence with a bit of foreboding because of these earlier experiences in other towns. Sandy was even less keen than I was; he would have been happy to give the whole place a miss altogether. So, we took the train anyway, and it was OK-ish. But certain parts of town - near any of the major attractions - were packed again with tourists, tourists, tourists, all intent on seeing what they'd read or been told they "must see" while in the city. If this is what it's like in the "off" season, it must be a complete nightmare during the high season. If I lived there, I'd be getting out of town.

Perhaps we are jaded by this point in our trip, or perhaps we are spoiled because we are living in our very own 13th-century village. But the "attractions" seemed to have little appeal. We did visit the Duomo, and I'm glad I did; and we did see Michaelangelo's David - although not the real David, who is inside and the subject of queues - but a replica David in his original position outside the Pallazzo Vecchio. I am not an art buff; how would I know the difference between the real thing and a replica? This was enough for me, and it seemed appropriate to see David where he was originally meant to be. (David, whoever he was, was a hottie, I must say, and that Michaelangelo was certainly a genius). We also loved Nettune, another massive statue in a fountain in the same piazza. Sandy said he liked him better than David, I think because his manly bits were bigger and more impressive.

My favourite parts of Florence were (surprise) the food bits. I can live without seeing The Birth of Venus. (The queues at the Uffizi museum snaked for half an hour or more and I just couldn't be bothered). But I would have been disappointed if I had left Florence without eating something really good. Our first stop when we got out of the train station was the Mercato Centrale - the large food market. Here we found two floors of fabulous stalls selling meat, fish, cheese, fruit, vegetables, spices. It was great (although no greater than say, the Prahran Market in Melbourne, which I also think is fab). We stopped here for a sandwich and a very good cappuccino and watched people buying pig's heads and tripe and Porcini mushrooms.

After we'd seen enough of the city; the street vendors selling made-in-China fake handbags and copies of Renaissance paintings, the crowds loping along with cameras at the ready around necks, we decided to find somewhere to eat lunch. We paused briefly in the Piazza Vecchio, and even contemplated one of the cafes on the square. But I just knew the food would be mediocre and expensive and we'd feel disappointed. We decided to head back towards the station, where we had seen some restaurants that at least looked authentic. Our reasoning being the further we got away from touristy areas, the better the food would be.

Our restaurant radar worked for us again at a little place called Ciro & Sons, in an unglamorous part of town very near the railway station. I just liked the look of it; unassuming but cared for. And it was great. Lovely people - it was a family place where the walls were lined with family portraits and wedding photos - and, fantastico! - a wood-fired pizza oven. We ate the best pizza of the trip so far, drank a superb bottle of Chianti, and Sandy ordered a tiramisu of which he said: "Prego's got problems!" It was a happy couple who wandered back to the train.

Back in our village, sitting at our local Enotica (seriously local: I could spit on it from our bedroom window) drinking more Chianti and eating a superb bruschetta; we decided that was it for us, for touristy places and crowds of people. From now on we're just going to hang out, like we are now, in small places and do nothing, relatively speaking. I've seen all the sights I need to see.

Today we walked out from our village a little way, and found a spot not far from the road between an olive grove and some grape vines (secluded from the road in case we felt like a wee after-lunch cuddle). We sat down, unpacked our picnic of bread, cheese, salami, wine and cakes from the local bakery. We ate and drank and talked and looked down across the valley at the farms, the planting, the distant hillsides covered in vines and olives and cypress trees. From a nearby farmhouse we could hear the tortured strains of a school child learning the recorder. This was followed soon after by the tortured shout of the parent begging the child to stop. We could see the towers of San Gimingnano in the distance. We're as close now as we ever plan to get.