Journey Data: Volterra and San Gimignano, Italy
It’s a continuation of my journey assortment masking our Mediterranean cruise in July of 2010. See my Mediterranean Cruise Day 1 publish for the introduction. On the end of this publish, you’ll moreover uncover hyperlinks to all days and ports of identify of the cruise. At the moment focuses on our day in Livorno {to go to Tuscany} and each day this week we’ll cowl each of our ports in Spain, Italy and France.
Day 7 Highlights:
- Visiting Volterra – the place Twilight’s New Moon was filmed – this was really a shock
- The colorful sunflower fields
- The olive bushes
- The rolling Tuscan hills
- Tenuta Torciano winery and restaurant
- Staying up until 4 a.m. with our dinner buddies {what had been we contemplating?!?}
- Real Tuscan wine and meals
- Lynne {dinner tablemate} telling me I was healthful and pure….like Nabisco
- Some geography courses to completely different members of our desk
- Lastly having rest room seats with lids!!
One different stop that wins first place! This rounded out our great tour of Italy. It was so good to see the resort facet the first day, the Roman historic previous the second day after which the Tuscan countryside at present. Granted, we missed out on Florence {which I heard was great} and Pisa nonetheless we had such an unbelievable time inside the nation. We had been lastly able to flee the crowds and a variety of the heat! Curiously ample I started the day contemplating that this was going to be boring as compared with the alternative two great ports we had been to. Boy, was I mistaken!
On the drive in, we observed 1000’s upon 1000’s of sunflowers, olive groves and grapevines mixed in with the rolling Tuscan hills.
Volterra is a cliff excessive metropolis that was a medieval fortress. The views are beautiful and it was good to see some medieval construction. This was such a quaint and guarded little metropolis {the inhabitants is 10,000 nonetheless felt like a tiny little village}.
The town’s baptistery and chapel.
Strolling town’s streets to the Roman Theatre ruins.
The Roman Theatre ruins and the great views from the equivalent lookout degree. Thank heavens for telephoto lenses!
We then walked to a neighborhood alabaster retailer and picked up some souvenirs {along with a Twilight wine stopper – I couldn’t resist!}. We then had some free time to wander the streets of metropolis.
Subsequent stop was lunch, about an hour away near San Gimignano. This was by far the very best event of the day and was the best meal of the journey. We went to a neighborhood winery and vineyard, Tenuta Torciano. The drive over was breathtaking.
We had been laughing on the bus journey on account of our info saved saying “Don’t be afraid of Luigi. He really does suggest successfully” like he was scary or one factor. My husband and I had been laughing hysterically the whole time at our animated host.
Luigi’s family has owned the winery and surrounding 450+ acres for the earlier 300 years. He would not promote his wine to grocery or liquor outlets and solely sells it to households instantly. Proper right here is Luigi and some man I believed was pretty and such a really perfect wanting Italian man {I am guessing it is his son or son-in-law}. The images are arduous to see {I wanted to lighten them pretty a bit to see their faces}, nonetheless perception me, he was beautiful. Maybe it was the accent. They taught us the suitable option to accurately “drink” wine along with the suitable option to preserve the glass, the suitable option to swirl it, sniff it, and plenty of others. It was such a pleasurable experience.
Our lunch consisted of an appetizer with cheese, salami, crackers, chips and bread to try with the various wines they served us. Then we had a spinach and white bean mix that sounds odd nonetheless was really delicious. Our basic course was Luigi’s mother’s lasagna recipe and it was to die for. To excessive it off, they added truffle oil to the best for us to try {it is made by them} along with their balsamic vinegar which was SO great. Regardless that it was 56 Euros a bottle {most likely close to $65 US {{dollars}}} we could not resist ordering some for them to ship once more to us.
For dessert, we had a dessert wine with biscotti. Luigi requested for a female volunteer to help him out. We had been with an older crowd on this tour so I volunteered. He primarily confirmed the suitable option to seduce a woman with this wine and biscotti. I was laughing so arduous I was crying. As soon as extra, the pictures are arduous to see nonetheless you get the aim.
Me and my new boyfriend Luigi. I could undoubtedly switch to the Tuscan countryside with him {or maybe his son…}. I am pretty sure my tooth have a blue/purplish tint proper right here from the entire wine.
A few further parting footage of the great restaurant and grounds.
After lunch and better than our justifiable share of wine, we headed to San Gimignano. Driving to this metropolis is great. Apparently the towers proper right here impressed the Twin Towers in New York Metropolis. We had been primarily merely given free time proper right here to find, retailer and get Italian gelato for the ultimate time. We bought 5 pretty watercolors of the Tuscan countryside and some gelato on account of the heat started to level out up as soon as extra.
We slept as soon as extra the whole bus journey home. Thank heavens. Little did everyone knows we is likely to be staying up until 4 a.m. Proper right here is our nightly dinner {photograph} along with the effectivity from the wait staff that night. We beloved Charlton!
So, we ended up staying out until 4 a.m. this night. Thank heavens we didn’t have an tour deliberate the next day or we really would have gotten solely two hours of sleep. We had lots pleasurable with our “dinner group” and closed down our sky bar along with The Vault {which my husband and I hadn’t returned to since my brother’s “Johnny Rockets” incident on a Caribbean cruise on the equivalent ship}. Such a pleasurable night and it was positively well worth the exhaustion the next day!
Confirm in tomorrow for our subsequent stop: Villefranche, France!
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