It's Friday night, and we've spent the past two days driving around Chianti, admiring the breathtaking vistas, and sampling wine. Pretty great stuff. Greg has managed to keep us alive even though the roads seem narrower than when we were here last time and everyone seems to want to drive on our side of the road. I'm so glad I'm just the navigator! It's been a bit of culture shock coming from a busy city to this very sleepy little town. We can't even find an open gelataria!
Yesterday we drove to Monteriggioni, built in the year 1200 as a one of Siena's fortifications against the armies of Florence. It is hard to imagine how this tiny castle withstood the powers of Florence for more than 300 years. We walked around a bit, had lunch, took a few pictures and headed out.
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| Church in the square in Monteriggioni |
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| Gate into the walled city |
We headed next through Castillina and past Radda to
Castello d'Albola, a vineyard we'd heard about that had a nice tour. The castle is on top of a hill with an interesting history and beautiful grounds. Because this is such a quiet time of year, Greg and I had the tour all to ourselves. The young woman who showed us around was very knowledgeable and fun to be with. And the wine tasting was very well done. A good time.
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| Villa at Castello d'Albola with their own private chapel |
Today we had another reservation for a wine tasting and lunch at
Castello Verraazzano. Another gorgeous setting, beautiful grounds, and more wine and cheese/prosciutto/salami. The wine here was more expensive and yet we actually preferred the wines from the day before. This time we were with two other groups of Americans, the first time we've heard American voices since we arrived.
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| The really old good stuff they keep in the basement. |
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| The grounds |
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| Lunch! Notice the amount of wine served! |
To work off lunch, we decided to hike from the road up to Badia a Passignano, a tiny community that is mostly made up of an ancient monastery. We both tried to get some good pictures, but I'm afraid we failed. The sun was just in the wrong place so you can see the results were not good.
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| My attempt |
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| Greg's attempt earlier. |
We talked about getting up early tomorrow and trying to get better light but I'm not sure that will happen. Or maybe we need a drone. Why didn't I pay better attention to that speaker at CE on drones! So here's a better professional shot. Pretend it's ours :)
Tomorrow we drive to Panicale in Umbria where we will spend the next 9 days in another small town and explore that area.
Rose and I visited Castella Verrazzano when we were in Tuscany a couple of years ago. Loved the view and the lemon trees- and the luscious balsamic vinegar I brought home! Looking forward to hearing about your next locations and adventures. Kathy R
ReplyDeleteWish the lemon trees were blooming when we were there. The olive trees were just starting to fill in. And their balsamic was very good! But we did our buying in Modena so couldn't get more. Thanks for reading!
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