The Tuscan Hills: July 7th

Today we drove into Tuscany. We had a bit of a rough start getting the car. We had reserved one with a company whose office was closed on Sunday. We tried to call the number but couldn't get a hold of them. We ended up going to another company across the street, got a car and we were off!

It is a beautiful drive through Tuscany! We saw so many vineyards stretching out for miles and miles over rolling hills. Our destination was Montepulciano, a little hill town south of Florence. Once we got there, we parked the car and began the walk up the steep hill to get to the main part of town. We explored the little town while we waited for the Contucci Cantina wine cellar to open up. We were able to tour the wine cellar and see the HUGE wine barrels with aging wine. It was pretty neat. After walking through the wine cellar we headed into the tasting room. The man didn't speak much English but he was super friendly and excited about us tasting his wine. After getting a couple of bottles we headed out.

As we were driving around, our goal was to try to find a vineyard and maybe get a tour. We turned into what we thought was a vineyard but ended up being a resort, Locanda dell Amorosa. It was absolutely beautiful! It used to be a little village a long time ago that was abandoned but then restored to a resort. The restaurant used to be the stable. After having a glass of delicious white wine we headed out to Siena.

When we got to Siena, we headed to their main plaza which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful plazas in Europe. However, it was hard to tell when we got there. It was jam packed, wall to wall with thousands of people. We had arrived at the end of the Palio festival. We found out that Siena has 17 neighborhoods and every year, at random drawing, 10 of the 17 participate in a horse race. They turn the plaza into a race track and it is a really big deal! There is celebrating two weeks before the race even starts and more celebrating after. I read that the horses are taken into the local neighborhood church for the priest to bless.

We were able to see the ceremony where they hang the flags of the winners. It was pretty exciting. After watching this for awhile we headed to the local duomo. The outside was beautiful! It had already closed for the day so we wandered around the outside and then headed back to Florence.

We had dinner at a little hole in the wall restaurant that had some yummy pasta and then we headed back to the hotel for a badly needed good night sleep.