A Sunrise Walk in Tuscany I Will Always Remember

Hello blog readers, it has been a while! I took a brief blogging hiatus for the past three or so weeks in order to do some European traveling with my husband. Ever since we landed in Tuscany, I’ve been eager to share photos with you all here for it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been and is an active epicenter of farming, history, architecture, and flavor.

Getting to Tuscany had included taking a train, renting a car, navigating through towns and roundabouts, getting lost, and carrying luggage up a flight of stairs. I was pooped by the time we sat down that night by the fire. Just as I was starting to think about my warm bed, Brandon suggested, “Let’s wake up before sunrise and go for a walk!”

“Excuse me?” I said.

However, I decided to not pick this battle and the next morning I was out of the house, dressed, and carrying a cup of coffee all before 7am. (Nothing short of a miracle.)

As we headed down the road, the soft glow of morning sun was just beginning to light up the fields and valley, and even I was arisen out of my stupor by the beauty of the surroundings.

I could see my breath in front of me and the air was crisp.

Red berries on the shrubs bordering the road beckoned for photos and were enough to put me in the Christmas spirit even at 6am on a November morning.

The road wound down the hill and every ten feet or so a cypress towered above us. Trees like these are very en vogue in Italy. The Italians plant them around every villa and road and seem to never tire of them.

The road leveled out and as we looked off in the distance we saw two stunning white horses heading towards us across a dew-covered meadow.

A movie director could not have ordered up a more perfect scene!

Drinking coffee in Tuscany with my husband, as the sun is rising next to two perfect white horses gliding towards me across a field covered in dew…can life get more perfect?

Despite my many attempts to woo the horses, they were wary of me and kept their distance.

Brandon and I were reflecting on the gorgeous scene as we continued on our walk, when all of a sudden a chestnut buck popped out into the field in front of us. Despite our silence, he saw us immediately, contemplated the risk we posed, and retreated back into the cypress grove.

Eventually we came to an abandoned farmhouse, whose stone walls held up broken windows and creeping vines. Down in the meadow below, which by then was alive with morning sun, three does grazed. As soon as they heard us, they turned their heads, looked us up and down, and bounced across the field and into the forest.

I’m a harmless tourist armed with nothing but a camera! It’s ok! I called after them. But they were gone.

The morning was straight out of a scene from Pride & Prejudice and was a great start to the strenuous day of cheese and olive oil tasting that lay ahead.

I suppose every now and then it pays to take your husband’s advice and get up before the sun rises.