CHIANTI

There are few areas in ltaly about which you believe you know and have said and read everything, and the opposite to everything. Such as the Chianti region. And there are very few, such as the Chianti region again, which take you unawares each and every time. A truly unending source of culture, humanity, scenery, architecture, tourist attractions, gastronomy and wines, the Sienese part of its territory contains the "historical" communes of this land: Radda, Gaiole and Castellina (the old Chianti League), and Castelnuovo Berardenga too. Here lie the lines of defence of the two Republics, Siena and Florence, which have scowled at each other through its woods and vineyards for centuries. The surrounding territory of Berardenga borders on the epic plain of Monteaperti and all the hills of the DOCG wine, furrowed by a thousand roads and a thousand tracks through the greenery.

And then, thanks to all the wine-cellars, farms, castles, boundless estates and tiny vineyards, centuries-old parish churches, refined hotels, farms for country holidays and other accomodation at a whole range of prices, the region does not only come alive during the grape harvest and olive-pressing, but there is a continous cycle of exhibitions, concerts, novel initiatives and events which transform it into a large openair theatre, with the maternal profile of Siena as a backcloth.