VIPs are notoriously hearty eaters, persons who like to eat and especially to drink a lot, and well. If by now George Clooney is an assiduous presence along Lake Como,  even Tuscany, as well, has often been chosen by stars for their summer holidays and their exclusive parties.

In 'Chiantishire', a land beloved by the Anglo-Saxon people, a historic rivalry has been going on for years, with strokes of rosticciana pork chops and Florentine-style steaks. It's the rivalry between the butcher of Panzano, Dario Cecchini, and the historic family of butchers in Greve, the Falorni. It can said that VIPs of every gender and age have wanted, at least once in their lives, to slip a knife into both butcher shop's tender meats. 

A while ago people were saying that Elton John had his accurately sealed steaks shipped directly to his castle in Scotland. We leave it to you to decide who has the best choice of cuts, as we really don't want to provoke the jealousy of either of the robust butchers.

Again in Greve, in the piazza you can find a small shop of fine linens, nightgowns as impalpable as rose-petals which the owner guarantees are the favourites of Penelope Cruz, who orders industrial quantities of them.
Another incredible story has the great Bruce Springsteen as protagonist. On the morning of his Florence concert in July, 2003, the singer rented several stupendous Harley Davidson motorcycles and took the whole band to celebrate the birthday of his beloved wife, Patti Scialfa, at the Casa del prosciutto of Vicchio in Mugello. He's a man with a rough edge and a heart of gold, who doesn't like places that are too snobbish, but who never misses a chance to enjoy good food.

The singer Sting, instead, is a different kind of person altogether. He was one of the first to move to Tuscany and, to be precise, to the beautiful countryside surrounding Figline Valdarno. We certainly could never find Sting, after years of being famous for his declarations in favour of yoga and meditation, with his fork stuck in a lovely steak.  The singer, an art lover possessing a spiritual temperament, has often been seen visiting the Uffizi, as during the historic exhibition featuring the “Lady with an Ermine” by Leonardo da Vinci.
LuisaViaRoma in Florence is where fashion victims traditionally meet to browse and comment on the latest news from the catwalks, sipping an aperitif in the bar on the first floor. Among them you're sure to find Paris Hilton when she comes to Italy to visit her Florentine friend, Roberto Cavalli.

The fact that Tuscany  favours relaxation and meditation has also been demonstrated by the Irish actor Daniel Day Lewis, known for his roles as the tall, dark and handsome character in films like “My Left Foot”, “The Last of the Mohicans” or the recent “There Will Be Blood”, that picked up a bevy of Oscars. A few years ago the actor actually transformed himself into a cobbler after becoming fascinated by the Florentine craftsmen's ancient art. In fact, in the year 2000 he found a house in Florence, in the neighbourhood of Santo Spirito, and went to knock on the door of an artisan in Borgo San Frediano, who creates custom hand-made shoes: Stefano Bemer. A short time earlier, Daniel had gone there to buy a pair of shoes and had discovered the maniacal attention to detail, the extreme care, like a Buddhist monk's, for every gesture.  He asked Stefano Bemer if he could come there to secretly learn the art of shoemaking.

And finally, just last summer some boys sitting in front of the historic Gelateria Badiani in Viale dei Mille in Florence swear they saw no less than Paul McCartney himself getting out of a  Rolls Royce; accompanied by a beautiful blonde, he enjoyed an ice-cream and then hurried back to his supersonic motorcar. We hope his dessert was able to sweeten the   divorce, costing him millions, from the treacherous Heather Mills.

(from the website www.turismo.intoscana.it )