Horseback Riding in Toscana

For 2 weeks in September, Mom and I headed to Italy. Toscana (Tuscania) mainly, for horseback riding, but we also did the touristy sites in Pisa and Rome.

It was a blast - Mom had never been, and the only time I was in Italy was during my 3-week backpacking trek in college. Let's be honest, 2 days whipping through a city (partially hungover from the night before) isn't really a way to experience another country.

Ok, it's just a DIFFERENT way to experience it :)

Anyway, for our horse portion of the trip, we stayed at the Rifugio Prategiano Hotel near Montieri, in the Maremma area of southern Toscana ("Tuscany"). We were there a week, with 5 full days of riding around the area.

The first day, Sunday, we just did a half-day ride to get used to the horses and, frankly, to break ourselves in gently to riding for 5-6 hours per day!

The next day we rode out from the hotel and from then on out, where we ended up in the afternoon was where the horses would "camp" (they'd bus us back and forth) 'til we got there the next morning. We ended up riding a huge, somewhat lopsided loop around the hotel area, never ending up more than a 40-minute car ride back to the comfort of our rooms each afternoon.

The first night the horses stayed at a villa called Ancqua. We ended up meeting a Maremman cowboy (a butero) - Gino - who was our guide for a morning.