CouchSurfing in Tuscany: November 5-9, 2006

We were delighted to discover both the beauties of Tuscany, small towns, medieval walled villages, the heady sights of Florence and the wonders of a new way to travel: CouchSurfing.

We had heard of CouchSurfing when traveling in Hawaii in May but had forgotten to actually try it out. www.couchsurfing.com is a site which connects the adventurous, trusting traveler with the adventurous, trusting host. It's almost like an exchange program, allowing travelers to experience local life, get the local low-down on food, places, language and culture, to stay somewhere for free and make new friends. Users upload a pretty detailed profile, including their interests, philosophies, travel experience and accommodation etc. We had a truly great time with all our CouchSurfing, it is an ingenious and yet sort of natural evolution of ideas. Very highly recommended to all!!

Many Thanks to our hosts in Tuscany: Lorenzo in Pistoia and Paolo in Grosetto!

We visited Lorenzo first, staying at his great apartment about 20 minutes outside of Florence. The keys got locked inside the car on our first night there, so we stayed a bit longer than expected. We went out and met Lorenzo's friends, shared a lot of dinners together. We spent a full day wandering through Florence, seeing Italian masterpieces at the Uffizi museum. We also went to a few hot springs in Tuscany, more research for our future onsen resort. We visited a few countryside villages, marveling at the narrow twisting streets and rows of vineyards. We stayed two nights with our host Paolo, a calm, quiet and excellent host. He took us to another quaint village and we walked nearby past some neat Truscan tombs and these trails that were lined by high cliffs. It was a fascinating trip into countryside I had been longing to see with my own eyes.