Tuscany

Daytrip 1: Sienna, Montelicino, Piensa, Montelpulciano

I woke up around 7, showered, and made my bleary-eyed, runny-nosed way downstairs, where I met the driver who was taking me to the tour meeting point. Very nice guy. Worked as a jeweler until the economy crashed and wiped out most of Naples jewelry market. As a result, he moved up to Florence and started in the tourism business.

Anyway, he dropped me off at the bus, where my guide Elio took over. Short, squat, and very Italian are words that all applied to Elio, and he was quite friendly and talkative (i.e. Italian). Anyway, me and about 10 other people crammed into the van and were off!

First stop: Sienna, home of the Palio horse race, 17 districts of the city that all hate each other, and the banks that started the banking families of Tuscany (the Medici included) on their way to power. We had a short tour of the town, past a few churches and through a few squares (you can see how much attention I pay to those now), eventually ending up at the main square of Sienna, where the Palio horse race (viewed shortly in the James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace) is held twice a year. It's essentially the Italian version of the Kentucky Derby. People spend weeks getting ready for the event, even though it only lasts about 3 minutes start to finish.

Anyway, after exploring the town, the tour took us to a shop where we tried some Siennese sweets: Panforte (fruitcake with more fruit than cake), Ricetta (cookies made with almonds, honey, and egg yolks), and panepato (spicy fruitcake). I bought some of the Ricetta and a half-bottle of dessert wine, then went exploring. We only had about an hour, so I didn't get far, but I did buy a souvenir map and a breakdown of the 17 districts and flags.

After that we went to Montelcino, where we explored the town for a short while (pretty medieval town, not many tourists) then went to a winery where we tried Brunello, a dry red wine famous in the region (which, much like Chianti, can only be made in one specific region of Tuscany). We crammed into a cellar, drank wine, and ate salami and prociutto for about an hour, learned how to decant old wine (apparently you should decant a bottle of wine older than about 20 years at least 20 hours in advance), then jumped back in the van.

Next up: Pienza, another small medieval town, to try some pecorino cheese, and get lost in a few back alleys. After exploring for a bit, I went back to the meeting point, but only Keikko (a Japanese woman whose Navy husband was stationed in Sicily) was there on time. I was worried they had left us, but the rest of the group showed up 15 minutes late (there was a Brazilian couple that was slooooooow, and they apparently held everyone up).

Last stop of the tour: Montepulciano, another wine making city, this time famous for making Vino Nobile, a slightly sweeter red wine than Brunello, but still very dry for my taste (I love dry whites, but dry reds just make my face pucker). After that, back in the van and back to Florence. The ride back was interesting; the only other Americans on the tour had a son who was just about to start his second year of college in business. His school didn't have a good career department, but he wanted an internship, and wasn't sure how to do about it. I told the couple everything I knew about getting internships, and they just about hugged me.

Anyway, back in Florence, I grabbed some pizza at the train station, walked back to my hostel, grabbed all my things, and dragged it (and me) to my new place. Once I got it all there, I CRASHED. My cold had been dragging on me all day, so I was exhausted.

Daytrip 2: Sienna, Chianti, San Gimignano, Pisa

This probably would've been my favorite trip, except I felt sick for most of it.Thanks to my cold, I didn't get to sleep until around 1-2 am, and I had to be up at 6 to make the tour on time (no pickup at the hotel, so I had to walk to the station). So, a combination of sleep-deprivation and coughing had me feeling a little sluggish.

But: I wasn't about to pass up a chance to see Tuscany, so I just bit the bullet. (Oh, and note to family: I feel fine now)

Anyway, the first stop was Sienna again, and was slightly more informative. The Siennese guide the first day was in a hurry for another apointment, so we didn't see much. This guide walked us through the history of the city and its rivalry with Florence, showed us the original banking offices, walked us through the monastary-turned-hospital, and then let us wander the square. I had some calls to my hostel to make (the bathroom in my hostel was jammed, I didn't know the wifi password, and I wasn't sure if I had to swap rooms for my last night) so I just found a cozy spot in the square.

Next, lunch at an organic farm in Chianti. 'Twas very tasty, and the cows they kept were adorable (including the one that looked like it was about to explode it was so pregnant). Why they walked us through there before feeding us beef ragu (made from those cows' colleagues) is beyond me. It was tasty, though. As was the rest of the meal (another post). The white wine (Vernaccia) was particularly good; it reminded me of vinho verde in Portugal. After lunch (where I talked with a design student from Kansas and a couple from Singapore), we took some photos in the Tuscan contryside and crammed on the bus.

Next up was San Gimagnano (San-Jimmy-Nyan-Oh), a medieval town famous for its towers. The town was gorgeous but, unfortunately, I have no real thoughts on it. By this point, I was EXHAUSTED from lack of sleep, so I grabbed a soda and sat on some church steps for most of the time there. I did some shopping towards the end too (they're famous for their alabaster and wine), but that's about it. It didn't help that there was a medieval festival going on, so the main square was shut down (otherwise I would have tried to climb one of the towers). Anyway, coke, sit, shop, BACK ON THE BUS!!!

Next up was Pisa. Thankfully, it was an hour and a half away. The tour guide managed to say this and "Feel free to take a-" before I was asleep. I woke up ten minutes outside of Pisa and felt like I could run a mile. Take the sleep deprivation out of a cold, and it gets much better, apparently. Who knew?

Anyway, we got to Pisa and hopped on a tourist train to take us to the Cathedral Square (saving us 20 minutes of walking in 85 degree heat. I felt like kissing the driver. Despite the fact he was a hairy, 40-year old, Italian man). Once on the square, our guide showed us how to take the typical cheesy picture (I refrained, and I have several photos showing WHY I refrained), but I did take a picture with the tower. Afterwards I went to the Campo Santo (the burial ground there, where Fibonacci is buried, and where Galileo WOULD have been buried if Florentines hadn't claimed his remains). Next, I went to the Baptistery, just in time to hear a demonstration of the acoustics of the room. Well. Demonstrations. One official one and about a half-dozen unofficial ones. Bring a 4-year old into a room with an echo and tell him to be quiet. See how well that goes. (The kids who would stomp around then protest, "But I didn't say anything!" were my favorite). After that, a few last minute photos of the tower (and accidentally crashing an impromptu photoshoot where a spanish teenager laid in the grass and umm...strategically placed the tower to mimic a certain part of his anatomy. Nice to see all teenagers are stupid, and not just the American ones) then back on the bus.

Officially, the tour ended here, though it was another 2.5 hours back to Florence. It normally took 1-1.5, but there was a ton of traffic from the beach, too. So, I sat and listened to the lady behind me smack her gum for 2 hours and her daughter complain about how her water wasn't cold anymore (try not leaving it in the sun, sugar). I was quite happy to scamper off the bus by the time we were home. Once there, I tried to grab a cab, couldn't find one, so I just walked home, skyped my dad (who suspiciously had video turned off. Can't imagine why), and went to bed.

Daytrip 3: Chianti

I got a much better night's sleep that night and REALLY felt the difference the next morning. I strolled down to the Florence Town office (the company leading the tour) and hopped on the bus with our guide, Matteo, a Tuscan sommelier. He drove us through Chianti for a bit, then up to the Castello Sonnino winery in Montespertoli, which he thought to be the finest wine-making town in the world. It WAS very good, I'll give him that. Anyway, he gave us a tour of the whole process, from growing to harvesting to fermentation to three kinds of aging (including opening up one of the casks, which he was NOT supposed to do). Afterwards, he showed us how they made Vino Santo, a VERY sweet dessert wine made by basically drying the grapes to raisins before fermenting them (more sugar percentage at the start means more sugar left over when the yeast get killed by the alcohol percentage). They don't actually sell much of the stuff outside the vineyard. It's so expensive to make that no one would buy it after shipping and markup, so you have to get it at the winery. Even then they sell it at a loss; most wineries just use it to try and get people to come try their other wines, too.

Oh, also. I'm a bit of a troll, if you don't know, and when I see an opportunity to troll someone, I take it. Out of curiosity, I asked how an average Chianti wine differented in taste from an average Napa Valley wine (meaing drier, sweeter, oakier, etc.). Matteo just looked horrified and said, "It's better. There's no comparison there." So, sensing an opening, I asked, "If I wasnted to get, say, a bottle of Merlot from California, could I get that in Florence?" Matteo just kind of paled and said, "I don't know. Yes? Why would you do such a thing. You're in Tuscany." I couldn't help but poke at his overdeveloped ego. So sue me.

Anyway, after the tour, the winery fed us lunch and let us try some wine. The wine was good (the chianti especially, obviously) as was pretty much everything else. I felt like I was in some kind of movie, though, when the door to the courtyard opened and the matron of the vineyard came in carrying a basket of fruit, dog glued to her side, and said, "I have some fresh-picked fruit for you, here. Let me go wash it and I'll be right back with it." Seriously? How 'Under the Tuscan Sun' can you get?

After lunch, some shopping at the vineyard store (I was pretty much the only one who didn't stock up), then off to another vineyard. Can't remember the name of this one, but it was a bit bigger. They had some gorgeous gardens with a lot of Lavender (which was actually blooming. Didn't see that in Provence). Also had a chat with a fellow touree, who was originally from Quebec, but retired to Thailand. He was planning on stocking up as much as possible, since the Thai government taxes foreign wine imports something like 150%. After seeing the gardens, Matteo explained how olive oil was made (the winery was also an organic olive farm), then we headed up for a wine and cheese tasting. I didn't like this wine as much (it had a more industrial-size feel to it; the other winery was TINY compared to this one), but the cheese was excellent. The conversation was also good, too. Six glasses of wine over the course of an afternoon works wonders with turning strangers into new friends. We talked about politics, travels, technology, and a couple other things, then crammed back in the van and headed home. Thankfully, we got back mid afternoon instead of late at night, so I had time for a nap before dinner.