Barga, Tuscany - our fave place in Italy!

I'm going to be writing a little bit of a travel diary about our stops in Italy, and here I'm going to be talking about Barga, which was the highlight of our holiday!

The original intention was to only stop by Barga on a day trip, which would also encompass Lucca. However, as TomTom started sending us in short loops around the tolls on the autostrada on the way to Cinque Terra we decided on a whim to stay in Barga for the night rather than head all the way to the coast.

The drive through the mountains was tremendous, beautiful vistas everywhere - but nothing could have prepared us for Barga itself, which was set part way up the top of a mountain with glorious views all around.

I had originally heard of Barga via trusty Tripadvisor so I had assumed it was quite a touristy part of Tuscany, but I couldn't have been more wrong. It is a real locals town, although there are a lot of Scottish locals as families from the area have connections there - so lots of friendly English speaking Italians were everywhere, which made it so much easier!

We hadn't realised, but we actually turned up on the busiest weekend of the year as it was an Italian bank holiday plus there was a wedding in town, so everywhere was packed. We parked up and I sent Lee to go and hunt down tourist information and to hopefully secure us a bed for the night. He never made it that far, but Lee did stop in a shop and ask, and amazingly what turned out to be the best B&B in town (well we think in Tuscany!) had had a last minute cancellation, and their best room with a balcony overlooking the mountains was available!

The name of the B&B was Casa Fontana, run by Susi and Ron who were absolutely outstanding hosts. They had thought of so many of the details and the B&B was authentic Tuscan, with all the rustic old beams but also had all the mod cons including a lovely wet room. The scent of lavender filled the house, and Susi even placed a fresh sprig on our pillows each day which was lovely! There was a reading room, with English magazines - a treat to read in bed with the sunlight streaming through the shutters after a day's hard walking! Ron and Susi were also great in recommending the best local restaurants and cusine, and we ended up falling in love with their first recommendation which was Riccardos - a family run restaurant specialising in "slow food" with an amazing view from its terrace. And after the shock of food prices in Venice, to pay 8 Euros for a meal and 6 Euros for a litre of red wine was pure bliss!



We also discoved the most amazing ice cream in the whole of Italy - probably the world - at the gelatteria in Barga. Run by an Italian lady who would suddenly break into a perfect Scots accent, we tried pretty much all the flavours over our three night stay and our favourites were trifle, rum and raisen and fig - all made with fresh ingredients. Lucky we did a lot of walking over the three days to burn it off!!