This is one of my earliest travel essays, written during a memorable fortnight in 2005 when my friends and I shared a villa in a family-owned vineyard, an agriturismo, near the  small Tuscan town of Greve. Tuscany is known for its picturesque landscapes, quaint villages and world-class cities, which are bastions of art and architecture. Many of us dream of spending summers “under the Tuscan sun”.  But on days when the weather is less than ideal, summer rain can be surprisingly satisfying…

Tuscan Rain. August 2005

I like the rain. My first and last days in Tuscany were rain-filled. I liked curling up under my blanket on my first night in Greve, listening to the rain as it battered the villa and to the wind as it swatted the doors and windows. 

Rain enveloped our trip to the pretty little town of San Gimignano. It was starting to drizzle when we scurried indoors to the cathedral. The sight of the Virgin of the Peace calmed us despite the torrent that developed outdoors soon after.

There was a brief dry spell during which we were able to pick a restaurant for some pizza and gelato. There we waited until the rain subsided. I guess rain scares away tourists because San Gimignano was not as crowded as I had expected it to be. The air was fresh and crisp, the ground wet, and the sky gray when we set forth to explore San Gimignano’s narrow streets and medieval skyscrapers sans the crowds.

My last full day in Tuscany was also rain-filled. I was drenched as I returned our rental car at Vespucci airport in Florence. After my friend Amie checked in for her flight to DC, I took a cab to Florence for my last one and a half days in this most quintessential of Renaissance cities. I immediately checked in at the lovely Hotel Davanzati, left my luggage, and dashed into the freshness of a newly-scrubbed Florence. I like the rain. 

Rain scared away tourists in Florence that day too. After a nice lunch of ravioli and red wine, I headed to the Ponte Vecchio with my camera in tow, detouring through secluded cobblestone side streets by the Arno River, trying to capture Florence during this most wonderful respite after the intense downpour but before the dizzying activity of a city that was beginning to wake up. I was excited about the full day ahead and all its promises and possibilities…..

I went to three museums and two churches those last two days. ‘Too much’, some may say but how can one not give in to the exhilaration of seeing Michelangelo’s David for the first time or Masaccio’s masterful frescoes in the Brancacci chapel at Santa Maria dela Carmine, the so-called birth of the Renaissance? How can one not marvel at Donatello’s sculptures at the Bargello and Michelangelo’s unfinished Prisoners at the Accademia? How can one not visit the final resting places of Dante and Machiavelli and Michelangelo at the Church of Santa Croce?

Renaissance. It was a glorious time, a stark contrast to the gloom of the Dark Ages that preceded it. A time of splendor and of geniuses like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo and timeless artists like Botticelli and Raphael and ‘divine’ writers like Dante. Imagine that there was a point in time in the late 1400s when these great men converged in Florence. It was a most exciting time, a time of color and passion, of seminal ideas and unsurpassed art, a time of rebirth…  just like the moments after a heavy downpour, when everything is recharging and abuzz with excitement and the air is fresh and ripe for the enormous possibilities of what is yet to come…..