My love affair with Italy is long-standing and so very strong – it’s like every trip back there keeps drawing me even more. As you already know, after our first time driving from Milan to the Amalfi coast in a rickshaw, I’ve long since been a fan of slow travel in Italy. The thing about … Continue Reading

We arrived late in the evening in Milan for our trip across Italy. Thankfully, we didn’t have much planned for the first evening asides meeting the organisers of the rickshaw tour and other participants over drinks and nibbles so the evening went by in a rather relaxed fashion… (prosecco will do that to you). The … Continue Reading

Exciting news!!! We’re off to explore Italy for a week with nothing but a backpack and a rickshaw! 🙂 It’s very unlike anything else we’ve done before and we’re very excited about it! Bravofly (which is part of the Lastminute.com group) set us a challenge to see how much of Italy we could cover – … Continue Reading

As I type this, I am quite literally knackered and just about ready to fall asleep but I had to update you quickly with some photos on what we’ve been up to so far on our road trip across Italy. Needless to say, the proper blog posts will come soon but I’m guessing you’re as … Continue Reading

Another day, another rickshaw adventure! This time though, the sun came out to play… and even better still, we stumbled upon an amazing surprise in the Italian countryside  – in huge part thanks to us taking a wrong turn and ending up in a town we had no plans to visit. (That’s definitely one of … Continue Reading

The last time we were in Italy on a road trip (in a rickshaw), one place we really wanted to visit was San Gimignano. We had lots of people recommend it on Instagram and Facebook yet for some reason or the other, we never quite made it to San Gimignano. Well, this time, we had … Continue Reading

Montepulciano was one of the best finds on our trip across Italy. It was one of those places we decided to pop into just a few minutes before we set off for the day and it was such a brilliant call. Even before we hit the town itself, it was nigh impossible not to stop … Continue Reading

As with everywhere on this trip, we arrived in Rome in the dark cloak of night so the next morning, we were more than pleasantly surprised when we looked around us and saw the stunning rolling Roman hills beautifully contrasting that lovely blue sky! It’s definitely the right motivation you need to get you excited … Continue Reading

All that walking around San Gimignano works up an appetitite that even the finest of wines is unable to satisfy. As a result, we pretty much spent the entire drive back from San Gimignano looking out for a decent Italian restaurant. If there’s anything I learnt from our Italian rickshaw adventure, it was definitely the … Continue Reading

Colour tends to speak for itself. There’s never a real need to explain the appeal of a colourful travel destination. Photos of the colourful city/town/village in question is enough to beguile travellers the world over! I’ve always been a fan of colours. At home, on my travels… even in my food and looking back at my … Continue Reading

You didn’t think we’d head off into the New Year without a round up of 2015 now, did you? 😉 This year on Hand Luggage Only has been quite special in so many ways – we’ve gotten to travel to so many amazing destinations, made so many new friends, eaten so many delicious meals, had so … Continue Reading

Arriving at the very first stop on our Italian road trip ended up being much later than we’d anticipated. Between the stops everywhere for photos and general tomfoolery, we ended up arriving around 9.30 pm. At this point, all I could think was “I hope Italian restaurants are open till quite late” (I kinda thought … Continue Reading

Yeah, I can’t tell you how many times I had to try to be able to remember that full name of that village – and that’s after I actually got round to pronouncing the whole thing in one go. It’s such a mouthful! We saw Civitella in Val di Chiana from a distance away (remember … Continue Reading

There’s no beating around the bush, there are so many beautiful places in Italy to see. It’s one of my favourite countries to just hop in a car, train, rickshaw and just explore. There’s something I just love about getting to Italy, with a loose plan (and Google Maps) in hand and just exploring some … Continue Reading