A regional specialty to look out for is cacciucco, a seafood stew or soup. Sometimes the bowl is a third full of bones and whatnot when you’re done.
I don’t know about risotto, rice is more of a northern thing.
This site has articles about a lot of Tuscan specialties:
Oh my goodness re that site!!! And ditto re the soup/stew. Robert, again, thanks for taking the time to share your wealth of knowledge.
One oddity about Tuscany, pretty much every bakery makes regular bread, but it often sells out early and then there’s nothing left but the old-fashioned unsalted. If you don’t care for it, you might want to reserve a salted loaf the day before.
Any suggestions for food items to bring home. Any place that makes olive oil I always bring some home. And a couple of bottles of wine. What else? TIA.
In Liguria they hang nets under olive trees to catch the dead-ripe fruit when it falls off. Makes the yellowest, butteriest olive oil I’ve ever had.
Ooohhhhh, now you’re talking 
That sounds divine.
Oh my, thank you SO much for this.
Are there any towns, not cities, that you think have especially good food. Lunch preferably. TIA.
Get the Slow Food trattoria book or app.
I’m cheap and never use my phone outside the country…but it’s only TEN DOLLARS A DAY so I think I can afford it. Thanks. PS: I’m old, ya know, so hard to break old habits.
I don’t think your phone needs service to use that app. With most phones you can get a tourist SIM card for $20-30 that will work in Italy for a month.
I’m not finding this. Can you give me a (senior citizen!) link. Sorry.
Google osterie d’italia 2017.
New T-mobile plan for over 55 yo. $60 for 2 lines. Unlimited data and text domestically and internationally.
Came back yesterday from a week in Bangkok. Only 2g speeds and some spotty coverage, same as ATT intl plans.
Love it!! Not a schill. A very happy customer after 30 years of getting ripped by Ma Bell.
Ditto the unlimited intl. text and data albeit a little slow on T-Mobile is awesome!
Beats the days of receiving $500 charges for 15mins of data usage from AT&T.
Finally checked my Verizon which I’d looked into before but then didn’t use. We have a ‘unlimited’ plan so if I use it in 140 different countries it’s $10/day and only on the days I might use it. More than anything I’d likely use it for navigation. I’m not one who needs to stay ‘connected’ all the time.
$10 a day is really expensive, you might be able to get an Italy plan for 30 days for considerably less.
For navigation, you could use Google Maps’s offline download feature when you have WiFi. Then you don’t need to be connected to use it for navigation.
But I probably won’t use it, maybe once of twice. And we’re only there for for six days. I’m guessing I can’t get 30 days for $10