September 20, 2013. Castlellina in Chianti
We picked up our rental car in Florence for our five days in the Chianti region of Tuscany. Here's the thing; I"ve been chattering away about the details of the trip for months. Why then is Larsen surprised that we reserved a small stick shift car that he will need to navigate through Florence to get out into the countryside? Because he never listens to me!
I will admit to one mistake; I didn't reserve a GPS because they wanted $70 for a week and I thought the GPS on my phone would suffice. I didn't clearly understand data roaming charges. Larsen double parked at the train station while I ran in to buy a GPS in the underground mall. I get back to the car, fire it up, and discover that, while I can get verbal directions in English, everything else is still Italian. So off we go. Italians are insane, aggressive drivers. Narrow streets, motorcycles zipping in and out of traffic, horns honking, and we can't read the street signs. Larsen did good.
First stop: Montefioralle
This is a small walled city that goes back to 1085. People still live here and they've turned the entire city into a winery. We had lunch on a patio that overlooks the valley.
We're in the heart of the chianti region. Many places don't even offer a white wine. I have resigned myself to getting my teeth whitened when I get home and have started to drink the reds. We ordered the house red, not a Chianti Classico, and they took the nice wine glasses away and poured ours in water glasses. Well, excuse me!
Hotel Colle Etrusco Salavolpi
Love this hotel. It's very old (971 ad) with massive beamed ceilings and two foot thick walls. You can see the slate roof between the beams from the inside. That's our room, with the two windows, on the bottom floor. This was originally a tenant farmer's house and outbuildings.
We had high hopes for this place when Larsen inquired about ice. Prego! Prego! (You betcha!). Well, we cleaned them out and this is what we got.
Walking around Castellina, everything is closed for the 2-4 pm snooze/lunch break.
The hotel advertises laundry facilities. What they really mean is that they will send our things out to be laundered for a 6.00 euro fee in addition to what the laundry charges. Everything we brought with us would fit in one large load at home. We added it up and it came to 148.00 euro. So we finally found a use for the extra equipment in our room.
Volpaia
This is another entire (1200 ad) village turned into a winery. The barrels of wine are stored in the church basement. The church is still active and provided a cool place for us to hang out waiting for the restaurant to open. if you haven't noticed, I'm a cat magnet.
Well, that was fun. Unfortunately the wine for lunch made us sleepy so instead of heading to the next winery, we went back to the hotel for a nap.
Very excited about tomorrow. We're going to spend the day at the Tenuto Casanova Organic Winery & Cooking School. Larsen is beside himself with joy. Once again, he wasn't listening!
