Tuscany - The Third Day

Well, what can I write about today.....

Yesterday was a total (but still fun) bust.

See, instead of getting a guide for the week...3.500 E. (which equates to about 5K) we chose to rent a car.

Like I said yesterday, "W" has been a master at the wheel.

Well, our plan was to go to Montalicino and do some wine tastings then off to Siena for the day.

Not.

The route we chose to take was like driving on the Blue Ridge Mountains for 3 hours.

We finally made it to our destination, but by then, W was quite exhausted and I must say we were too.

We could have gone another route on straight roads (which would have taken 1 1/2 hours, but "you know who" (me) wanted to savor any beautiful topography that I could.  And I did, with almost a bad case of car sickness.

All I can say is we probably needed just a day to "wander" around, and we got it.  I hate we sort of lost a day while we are here though...

My advice to you if you want to visit the vineyards of Tuscany, is to drive to Montalcino and hire a guide for the day.  When we got there we asked for a map.  Confusion galore.  About 1000 dots on a map that we could not for the life of us understand.

anyway.....

We did manage to make it to one winery called Banfi.  it was an oh so beautiful one at that and we had a wonderful lunch there.

The wine was yummy

The Banfi resautranta (I'm now speaking Italian English) sold all of their products of course.  Including the balsalmic vinegar which was 60.00 for that little bottle.  But it was ohsogood.  If I had know that, that little bottle from the restaurant would have been in my purse!  HEY, it was meant as part of our lunch!  That's not stealing is it??????

they had gorgeous pottery everywhere

I took this pic of this church because not only did it have a cross on top, it also had a chicken weather vein on top! It just made us all chuckle.

and back at our villa.....where the guys promptly found their napping place.  (just had to take this pic even though I'm gonna get killed for it)

One note of interest,,,,,most of the villas in this area do not have an air conditioner.  Whew, it's made for a hot little vacation and not great sleeping conditions.  

Today?

We DO have a guide!!! yeahhh!

We are going to Pisa, Lucca, and on to Florence to meet our guide and do some major sight seeing and shopping.  (I feel that new Louie in my future) I am so excited I got up at 4 this morning!!!

Have a wonderful day y'all!

kb