Episode 46: An Untourist’s Stroll Through Pisa and Florence

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This week, the International Living Podcast swoops down to the rolling hills of Tuscany, Italy. Host, Jim Santos, talks to International Living Lifestyle Editor, Seán Keenan. Seán joins the podcast fresh from a trip to the heart of the Italian region best known for its olive groves, vineyard-covered hills, centuries-old farmhouses, and art-filled cities.

Florence and Pisa, where Seán spent much of his time in Italy, are among the world’s most-visited destinations. Florence, famous worldwide for its architecture and the long-lived opulence of the city’s Medici founders, has been a fixture of European tourism since the 17th century. Europe’s educated elite made the city a stopping-off point on their ‘Grand Tour’ to the antiquities of ancient Greece. Tourists are everywhere in the historic center, there to view artworks as infamous as Michelangelo’s David, or Bottecelli’s Birth of Venus.

Pisa, too, groans under the weight of mass tourism. With a globally recognized icon of the modern tourism industry—the Leaning Tower—nestled in the city’s northwest corner, the footfall of international visitors is enormous. Most come to take a photo of themselves with the tower, and leave soon afterwards.

It’s a missed opportunity because, overlooked by the majority of its visitors, Pisa is one of Europe’s most attractive, liveable, and pleasant cities. Florence, too, away from the crush of the tourists, is an energetic and attractive civic space, with food, wine, conviviality, and charm that rewards a deeper dive than the tourist trudge from the Duomo to the Pitti Palace.

It's this ‘untourist’ experience that brought International Living to Tuscany; to search for the overlooked piazzas, cafés, bars, villages, and undiscovered corners of the region, as well as the flavors, customs, and charm that lies under the surface. It’s surprising just how easy it is to become an ‘untourist’. And it’s infinitely more rewarding than the package tour approach. Tune in for inspiration and ideas on how to make Untourist Tuscany yours.

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