A Word With WPT’s Director of Television: Tuscany

November 24, 2015 PBS Wisconsin Leave a Comment

My wife Mary and I recently returned from the WPT tour of Tuscany. It was a wonderful trip guided by our friends from Holiday Vacations. It’s hard to believe how beautiful Tuscany is until you travel there. The beauty is everywhere, including at every dinner table.

In fact, it was hard to leave Tuscany behind. Our trip reminded me of how, when you’re considering buying a car, you seem to see it everywhere. That was true for us with Tuscany, except that we didn’t see it on the roads – we saw it on PBS.

A couple days after our return, Jeffrey Browne from NewsHour had a feature on art restoration in Florence. The new PBS food series I’ll Have What Phil’s Having filmed an episode in Italy, and we went to two places that its host, Phil Rosenthal, recommended in Florence. Every episode of Lidia’s Italy reminds of our visit. Rick Steves showed us Italy’s Riviera: Cinque Terre and Tuscany, which begins with Tuscan ruins we visited in Volterra.  And everywhere we went, Americans were toting Rick Steves’ great travel books.

Aside from the great views and the great food and wine, a thousand thanks to WPT friends for their passion for learning and culture and making our trip such a great experience.