Today we are on another private tour for 8 people with Franchesco. We are heading out into the Italian countryside again as all 8 of us have seen the best of Florence on previous trips. After a stop at a servo on the freeway for our usual wakeup coffee and pastry we headed for the hills... theTuscan hills!!
The servo was amazing with the best freshly made pastries and a beautiful sunny day to boot. We have been so blessed with the weather on this trip so far.
We passed many sunflower fields which were coming to the end of their life but some were late bloomers. Such pretty countryside.
Our first stop was to a little village called Monteriggioni. Not many tourists here but it was still only early in the day. I did buy a ceramic bruschetta plate which I was happy about as I haven't had time to do much shopping on this trip as we have been on the go, go, go all day most port days.
After Monteriggioni we headed for Sienna which is characteristic by the beautiful Duomo - Cathedral which commands top spot on the vista. Unfortunately I did not get the iconic shot as too hard out of a moving van.
Morning wakeup coffee and pastry.
The cathedral is spectacular but not enough time to go inside. The main square in Sienna is huge and in the olden days a horse race used to be run around the perimeter while all the spectators were fenced off in the middle. It must have been a great spectacle in it's day. The town is decked out in different coloured flags in relation to the horses.
We then continued our drive through the Tuscan countryside to get to our lunch stop in a vineyard - Fattoria di Montecchio. We had a very informative tour of the winery given by the very friendly Arianna and we were lucky enough to meet the owner and chief wine maker who were sampling the wines in the vats. We got to see the wine bottles being filled, corked and labelled which was interesting.
The best part was our lunch and sampling the wines.... You can imagine how noisy the bus was on our next leg!!!! What a beautiful place to stop for lunch... thank you Fabrizio for recommending and organising it.
As we had gone overtime with our visit to the winery our trip to San Gimignano was rather short... Not really enough time to walk up to the main square and back but still a beautiful place but definitely more time needed to do it justice.
Another great day and looking forward to Canne tomorrow.
Yummy fresh pastries
Sunflowers in the country
Monteriggioni
The Cathedral at Sienna
The main square in Sienna and the famous horse race that was held once a year.
The main square today
Fancy a pizza???
Driving through the Tuscan countryside
Fattoria di Montecchio
San Gimignano
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