Tuscany

My wife and I recently escaped to Tuscany together for ten days with no kids. Most parents of young-ish kids will appreciate this as a rare and profound opportunity. We stayed three nights in Florence, three nights in the countryside at an agriturismo (an Italian farm stay), and then two nights in Manarola in the Cinque Terre before heading back to Florence to fly back home to Oregon. It was magical for a few reasons. First, Tuscany is as beautiful and romantic as the tropes insist. The countryside was especially wonderful. Any sense of stress or anxiety melted away against the views and serenity of the place. We did a cooking class one day, a bicycle tour the next, and a wine and olive-oil tasting after that. And side from those things, there were no time pressures or logistics to manage, no kids to entertain. Second, on that note, this was the longest we’d been away from our kids, ages 9 and 12. We did one other no-kids trip a few years ago for five days. Other than that, we’ve been…