The Tuscan Countryside

Day 5-  Exploring and Wine tasting in Tuscany 

This morning we woke up and met our driver for the day, Giovanni. He drove us through the Tuscan countryside. Our first stop was off the map, Barberino Val d'Elsa. This town looks as if time stood still. There were seriously NO tourists. 

Our next stop was Siena.  During our drive there, I learned that the people of Florence and Siena didn't get along, which led to the building of what the Siena people thought was a bigger duomo but was not the case. We climbed to the top of the bell tower and had a view of the town. 

 

Our third stop was the most charming vineyard called Fattoria Saint Appiano where we did our wine tasting. When we first arrived we were taken on a tour of their vineyard and where they keep and store their wines. Our wine tasting/pairing was in the wine cellar where we tried 9 different wines, and 2 different dessert wines (a little too strong for me). In my opinion, the best wine was their bottle of rose.

{The sweetest tour guide}

{Appetizer}

{My FAVORITE meal was the homemade pasta with red sauce (above) and a pasta with pork that was seasoned in garlic, rosemary and white wine}

{ Leslie bought several bottles and was nice enough to buy us some too.}

 Our last stop on the nine hour tour was to the small walled, medieval town of San Gimignano.

That night we ate dinner in the same piazza that we ate lunch with Cole and Ashley the day before and then walked to the Ponte Vecchio bridge, which is the only bridge in Florence that wasn’t destroyed during  WWII by the Germans because Hitler admired it when he was visiting Mussolini, but now it is used as a market/gold shop.

{Our view of the river from the bridge}