Our Italian Adventures Part Three: Tuscany

Out of all the places we went, Positano was my favorite, but out of ALL the days we were in Italy, our day in Tuscany was by far the best!

Brian had been to Florence on his last trip to Italy, so this go round he was hoping to spend more time in the countryside exploring different wineries. Fortunately, one of his good friends had recently been to Tuscany on his honeymoon and recommended a driver they used for touring around the vineyards. So Brian contacted our soon to be driver, Donatella back in January to get all the dates and details squared away. Fast forward seven months and our Tour of Tuscany had arrived!

As I had mentioned in a previous post, I was a little careless with my wine turned limoncello consumption the night before so the sound of my early morning alarm buzzing in my ear was less than delightful. But, I put my game face on and we headed out the door to meet up with the rest of our group, a single woman from Australia and a couple from outside the Los Angeles area, all of whom would become our best buddies by the end of the day.

We spent the day traveling through the Chianti Classico region, with our first stop being, Solatione. Here we met, Franchi, who runs the winery and vineyard with her brother. It was merely 9:30am and after touring around the vineyard, she treated us to three very generous sized glasses of wine along with some meat, cheese, and bread. It seemed a little early for wine intake, but I remembered I was on vacation (in Italy) and it suddenly just made sense to jump right in.

Franchi seasoning and preparing the wine glasses for our first tasting; gourmet spread of appetizers. 

Here we learned that there are certain rules that must be followed in the Chianti Classico region in order to receive the Chianti Classico sign of approval. These bottles are labeled with the iconic rooster sticker which helps make them easily identifiable when shopping for wines. We also learned about the Super Tuscan, which is a wine made in this area but does not require following all the rules and are typically bolder, richer wines with a higher price tag than the Chianti Classicos. 

Barrels of aging wine, gorgeous hydrangeas everywhere, lots and lots of grapes

Saying goodbye to Franchi and soaking up the last of her beautiful views. 

Our next stop was Altiero where we enjoyed more gorgeous views, saw our first olive tree, and enjoyed a feast of wonderful appetizers including, but not limited to, bruschetta, proscuitto, cheese, and some amazing sausage and cheese crostinis.  

Olive tree; close up picture of the black olives before they are ripe

We had so much fun being treated like royalty by this wonderful family. The wine was spectacular and I can't wait to sip on my souvenir of rosé and dip into my bottle of olive oil.

The next stop on the tour was Renzo Marinai. We continued to enjoy great wine and gorgeous views. I couldn't get over how "we" (Americans) try to recreate the Tuscan Style, and here I was in the middle of it. I had so much fun exploring the homes and taking in all their authentic decor that we mass produce and TRY to recreate. I love that it is all they know. It's what has been passed down from generation to generation. 

I think I could get used to these views

Where are the wine wipes when you need them? 

LUNCHTIME: 

And then there was lunch....but not just any lunch. We were truly immersed into the Tuscan culture. Grandma prepared several courses, starting with the most amazing lasagna we've ever had. Then it continued with baked tomatoes, chicken wrapped proscuitto, salad and of course wine. We loved learning that wine is enjoyed with EVERY meal as they feel it makes the food taste better, but during mealtimes, Italians drink "table wine" which is less expensive. They save their nicer wine for special occasions. 

We loved seeing all the fresh produce growing around the home. 

This is the part of the day where I decided to play with the functions on my camera and now have some work to do to get this back to its true colors. 

Last but not least we ended the day at Savignola Paolina.

My favorite picture from the whole trip. If I could sit here every day, I bet I would blog more....

....especially with these views.

lots of grapes

Vineyards first bottle of wine; Barrel used to make wine in old days; Device for crushing olives to make olive oil

I'm pretty excited about my olive oil

We couldn't have asked for a better day! We felt truly welcomed into every home we visited. It was always hard to leave each vineyard and move onto the next. The food and wine were both amazing at every place we went. This is a must do experience if you are traveling to Italy. 

Our amazing driver, Donatella. We owe her all the credit for our perfect day!!

Our Italian Adventures Part Two: Florence

Our first train ride through Italy was a complete success. We arrived about 45 minutes before the train left, which left us just enough time to purchase tickets and line up to be one of the first ones on the train. We found out it can be complicated to find seats together when you purchase tickets last minute but somehow we lucked out after trying over and over again using one of the automated kiosks. 

The train ride itself was rather disappointing since there was a big wall that obstructed our view from seeing most of the countryside as we traveled. But it gave me an excuse to catch up on some zzzz’s before arriving in Florence. 

Our hotel was walking distance from the train station and just down the street from the Duomo which made Brian 2 for 2 on choosing great hotels. After a morning of train and rain, I freshened up for a minute before heading on our way to find some pizza. 

We stumbled upon Gusto Leo, which was my favorite pizza from the trip. I’m trying to forget that I ate twice as much as I should have which left me with quite a tummy ache, but that’s pretty much the same story from everywhere we ate. Portion control isn’t my strong suit.  

We spent the rest of the afternoon checking out the Duomo, crossing the Ponte Vecchio, and making our way to the top of Piazzale Michelangelo (by taxi). The views were absolutely gorgeous and the rain storm that had cleared out created the most beautiful skies. We did walk back and it wasn't as far as it looked from the top of the Piazzale. There was so much to admire on the way back to the hotel that it went by quickly. 

Using my 50mm lens this is as much of the Duomo I could get in each picture which shows just how massive the structure is

Walking across the Ponte Vecchio

Ponte Vecchio from a distance

Looking out from Piazzale Michelangelo

A view of the Duomo and the Ponte Vecchio from Piazzale Michelangelo

Breathtaking Views and Heavenly Skies; Our view from the Ponte Vecchio

One of the David statues in the city, but I love this picture for the sky

That night we ate dinner at Bucca de Mario, and all I can say is WOW! We wined and dined ourselves with an amazing linguine with truffles and steak florentine. Being from Texas, we were tough critiques on the steak, but overall it was prepared to perfection and a must do while in Florence.  Our waiter explained that the way it’s aged is what makes this steak so special to this region. After dinner our waiter introduced us to our first shot of limoncello and grappa, and I’ll just say it wasn’t our last. 

Linguine with Black Truffles; Bistecca Florentine

The Duomo as we walked back to our hotel after dinner

A great dinner led to a late night, and I’ll admit i was regretting it when my alarm went off early in the morning for our Tuscany tour that kicked off at 8:30am. 

Tuscany deserves a post of its own so I’m fast forwarding 10 hours to later that night. 

We were dropped off from Tuscany, took a power nap in our hotel, and then surprise, it was time for dinner! We went to 4 Leoni which I had read to order the white truffle ravioli, but unfortunately it wasn’t an option due to truffles not being in season. I hadn’t seen a vegetable in days (other than a tomato prepared in 20 different ways) so I started with an amazing pesto salad. I love how they serve their cheese in big chunks instead of shredded and can’t wait to recreate this salad using Brian’s homemade pesto recipe when we get home. This was just the refresher I needed to gear me up for the days and days of pasta ahead.

The next morning we slept in, hooray!! Checking out Michaelangelo’s famous statue of David at the Academia was first on our list for the morning. We preordered tickets for this museum and I can’t stress enough how important this is when going to museums in Italy. We skipped the line and went straight in to find what we were looking for. 

The Three David Statues found throughout the city of Florence

After staring at Michaelangelo’s perfectly chiseled sculpture for quite some time, we walked around the city some more before stopping at Trattoría Mario for one last Bistecca Florentine. Brian had seen this restaurant featured on one his favorite food shows. This was the original place we tried to eat dinner the first night, but we found out it is only open for lunch. It's very casual and tightly packed. We shared a table of six with a family of 4. 

Although there were no signs of rain in the sky, it was pouring when we left Trattoría Mario, but once again, thank goodness for my hat! We headed back to our hotel to grab our bags and walked in the pouring rain with luggage and all to the the train station. Next stop: Naples. 

Ciao Firenze!

Our Italian Adventures Part One: Venice

If I’m being honest, I can’t say I did much preparation for this trip, other than packing my suitcase, so I have to give Brian most of the credit for how perfectly executed our entire trip was. He had traveled through several other parts of Italy 10 years ago so I put my trust in his experience and put most of my energy into researching lunch and dinner hot spots I found from searching some of my favorite blogs and using my ever-so trusty travel companion, Trip Advisor. My mom made several comments before I left about how confused she was that I hadn’t been reading Travel information books (or let alone, bookmarked pages to read on the plane), but it ends up Brian’s previous knowledge coupled with my love for all things food was nothing short of perfection. 

I think the idea of leaving Graham and getting him all squared away for 10 days was the real reason I couldn’t concentrate on what I was going to do when I got there. The bigger obstacle was saying good bye and getting out the door. 

And so our Italian travels begin…

Brian and I had lots of miles built up from a year less traveled after having a baby so we decided to do this Italian trip right and fly business class overseas. After all, isn’t that what the Romans would do? I was hoping this would help us feel rested but between the adrenaline, excitement, and a great book, Emily Giffin’s The One and Only, it was hard to keep my eyes shut for too long. So after hours upon hours of traveling (and eating) we arrived in (Dusseldorf for a layover) and then Venice far from rested, but anxious to begin our journey. 

Several days before leaving on the trip, I had gotten my hair highlighted and talked with my hairdresser extensively about all our destinations (I’m not sure Brian would completely agree, but this conversation was extremely helpful, as I’m pretty sure I started numerous conversations on the trip with “my hairdresser told me…”). 

So here we go, "My hairdresser told me" that in Venice, you will arrive to your hotel by boat, and sure enough I saw pictures of this happening on the website so that’s exactly what I pictured. Brian on the other hand was reading this long novel of directions that involved way too many modes of transportation to get there. Luckily, we settled somewhere in between our two visions so after getting off the plane we grabbed tickets for a community ferry that made several stops and dropped us off near St. Mark’s square where we walked a couple blocks (in circles just a few times) to our hotel. While this wasn’t the worst way to get there, I would definitely recommend looking into spending a little more money and taking a private taxi from the airport to hotel. gorgeous scenery + private boat = money well spent

A view from the ferry as we were getting closer to our final drop off destination

Our hotel was amazing! Our room looked exactly like the picture on the internet, and had windows that opened up to views of the canals with gondolas cruising by. 

The canals outside our hotel window

We were quick to join the streets of overflowing tourists and check out all the well known sights.

The Rialto Bridge (the oldest bridge across the Grand Canal):

A view of both sides of the Rialto Bridge

Both sides of the Rialto Bridge and the walkway through the center

Our View from the Rialto Bridge

The Grand Canal

St. Mark’s Square

The Bridge of Sighs (prisoners used this bridge to enter their jail cells. This was their last view of the city.):

A light fixture that reminded me of The Venetian; An amazing sailboat; The Bridge of Sighs

I was in awe of all the gorgeous flowers hanging from the buildings. All fully bloomed and full of color. This city is nothing short of an experience that belongs in Disney World or at least a storybook. At one point I looked up at the sky and had to second guess myself as to whether or not we were inside. It was the perfect color blue with clouds loosely dispersed all over.

By late afternoon the jet lag was trying to set in so we stopped at a touristy cafe for a "Cafe Americano" pick me up, followed by a glass of rosé. We enjoyed watching the gondolas stroll by underneath the Rialto Bridge before getting back out on the streets and checking out more sights.

 A random canal behind us

Grand Canal

Grand Canal

More Grand Canal views and where we got on our Gondola

Venice was the only place I couldn’t find an amazing recommendation for dinner via word of mouth, so we followed our gut, and decided upon a little spot near our hotel that we thought was just great. We sat outside in a tucked away spot away from the crowds and had great food. Since eating there I've looked up the Trip Advisor reviews and they weren't too great. There were lots of complaints about the service and looking back it may not have been the best, but they did recommend a delicious pizza and the atmosphere was just what we were looking for. 

The wine and pizza are from dinner; the spaghetti carbonara is lunch the next day

One of my best friends told me about the dueling orchestras that played in St. Mark’s square so after dinner we headed in that direction to enjoy some wine and gelato. This was my first gelato experience and let’s just say I ordered like a pro. I added a gelato-biscotti sandwich to my order as we were paying and it was probably one of the best decisions I made the entire trip. I tried to order one every night thereafter and could never find one similar. I’m still dreaming about that simple yet oh-so-tasty delight. 

The orchestras were great entertainment and the perfect end to day 1. 

I’m not a breakfast person, and Brian informed me that Breakfast is not a big deal in Italy, but both myself and italy surprised ourselves by making this one of my favorite meals of the day. Each hotel in every city we went to served a breakfast spread complete with thinly sliced salami and assorted cheeses that made for a fabulous breakfast sandwich on sourdough bread. and I definitely can’t leave out the biscotti with nutella that usually capped off the “not a big deal” meal each morning. 

When Brian and I travel, there’s not a lot of down time. Ok, we do sit at restaurants several times a day soaking up the culture with a glass of wine and an appetizer or two, but there’s a lot of tourist sights and tours that take place in between so this breakfast was a great way to get me through to the next meal each day.

Our first stop after filling our bellies, was a gondola ride. We hopped on near the Rialto bridge and enjoyed taking in all the scenery and riding through the narrow waterways in the city. The rest of the afternoon was spent strolling around the city. Mid morning it started raining on us, but fortunately I made a split decision to buy a hat just minutes before the first drop sprinkled down so I was well prepared for the on and off showers that would accompany us the rest of the afternoon. 

Kisses on the Gondola

I'm always a sucker for a great hat on vacation. 

When the rain started coming down harder, we snuck into a little cafe and grabbed a pasta carbonnara snack. Not long after we headed back to our hotel where we grabbed our bags and took a water taxi to the train station to make our way to our next destination. Florence. 

Arrivederci Venezia!