Day 4: Our tour of Tuscany

Today we met our private tour guide, Christian, in the lobby of our hotel at 9:30 a.m.  Once we were loaded up and ready to go explore Tuscany, he took us to Michelangelo's Square to see one of the most famous views in Florence.

You could see the Synagogue, Ponte Vecchio, il Duomo and our hotel.  Shortly there after we got back on the crazy streets of the Italian drivers and headed to San Gimigiano for some sight seeing of the town.  This town is famous for the towers that the families would build to show how wealthy they were.


We walked around admiring the sights and taking in the views of the town overlooking vineyards and olive groves.  We stopped in the town square and Brittany wanted to get some Gelato from a certain shoppe our guide had shown us.  I said that we have had gelato everyday so far and she said "but this is 'World Famous Gelato.'"  So needless to say we got some. 

We then headed to a small traditional restaurant in the Siena.  We tried some red wine, ate some bruschetta - one with diced tomatoes, another with mushrooms, the next with lard from a pig and finally chicken liver.  All of which were pretty good but none of them our favorite.  I had the grilled pork chops with mixed vegetables and Britt had the wild boar stew which was also delicious.  After lunch we headed back up the road to a small family owned and operated winery.

This is Christian, our tour guide

The husband and wife that own the winery were on vacation and found this place, bought it and restored it.  They made their life in Italy.  They only have a handful of people working for them and they put out thousands of bottles of wine every year.  One of the girls that worked for them showed us around and we tasted some of their wine, which was really good.  We bought a bottle of wine that we will save for a special occasion one day!  Once we were finished with the winery we headed to a small town in Chianti called Greve.  The town itself was actually built around a food market that is still very active today.  Every Saturday the locals have the market square slammed packed with people.  We visited one of the local butchers that deals with pork, wild boar, beef and cheese.

We were able to taste some wines and try some of the different cheeses they had to offer and we even tried some of the wild boar.  After a full day our driver dropped us off at our hotel and said goodbye.  His wife is due with their first born child any day.  Brittany is feeling a little better today - still stuffy but we are both very excited about hiking through Cinque Terre tomorrow.

This picture doesn't do this justice...the colors of Italy are amazing.  The lighting, the hundreds of year old buildings...Italy has such amazing character.