Tuscany Day Trip

This past week really brought me back to reality. Since January 24th I was stuck in a dream, in a foreign city with great food and days that were Sunny and 60 degrees. But Wednesday this all changed when it started raining for really the first time since I have been here. On Thursday it rained again and spoiled me started to feel sick. I had the chills on Thursday and from then until last night I had a splitting headache and stiff neck. I was upset since this sickness stopped me from going out with my friends and enjoying the beautiful weather on Friday. However, I was able to push myself out of the apartment for an hour on Friday to meet up my friend Lauren who I stayed with in Florence. She is visiting Rome for the weekend but is staying at the apartment of another girl who goes to AU (but is studying at a different school here). I wish I could have toured the city with her, since she went to the Vatican on Friday and I haven't been yet, but there is no way I could have climbed up 400 stairs to the top of St. Peter's!
Yesterday, I did my best to ignore my headache because I had already paid to go on a day trip to Tuscany for wine tasting. I'm sure the festivities yesterday didn't help my health but it was so worth it!

Yesterday I left at 7:30 am for a three hour bus ride to Trequanda, right outside of Siena with a group of about 50 students from AUR. We went to a winery/ bed and breakfast called Fattorie del Colle di Trequanda. This winery was originally founded in 1592. When the owner took control of it in 1998, however, she decided she wanted the entire staff to be female, and there were NO female wine makers in Italy at the time. This risk paid off since in 2004 the winery was named best in all of Italy.

First we had a tour of the area. The guide showed us a beautiful view of the Tuscan country side and told us a little history of the area. She told us the winery was in the Chianti region thus they were allowed to call their wine chianti. AND, the owner of this winery also has property in Montalcino, famous for Brunello, thus they are also allowed to make Brunello. There is also a chapel on the property and an Italian garden so she took us to see these things as well.

A photo of a part of the Winery

View of Tuscany hillsides

Statue in the Italian Garden- a tradition started by the Medicis

Tiny Chapel

Then the guide gave us a tour of the wine cellar and told us how they made wine there. I guess I didn't pay enough attention to recount how the wine is made, it is pretty complicated. But afterwards we tasted two wines. Their Chianti Superiore and Brunello. Apparently the Brunello costs about $100 in the U.S. It was probably my favorite of the day, our student life rep who took us on the trip even gave my table a refill of this wine!

Wine vats

aging the wine

wine, with Gabby in the background

Then, the chef of the property gave us a demo of how to make the pasta of the area, i couldn't understand what this pasta was called though. Then we had a four course meal that took about 2.5 hours to eat. For starters we had a meat, cheese, and bruschette platter. Then we ate the tuscany pasta with a delicious meat sauce. They gave me 3 helpings! The server asked me if I wanted a third helping and I said No, grazie because I knew there were more courses, but she said "no, you want it!" and served me anyways. It is rude to not clean your plate so I gave my third serving to a hungry guy sitting next to me, it was his fourth serving of pasta, and for some reason he was very grateful for it. Then there was a chicken and potatoes dish. Normally I would be very excited for a meat dish, since I haven't had much lately, but at this point I was about to explode and my appetite was low because of my headache. The dish was delicious, but I couldn't finish it. Finally for desert, the smallest dish of the day, we had a shortbread pie with jam, mine was raspberry. I wish I had taken pictures of the food, but I was too distracted by the amount I was eating. Meanwhile we had two more types of wine, one called Centrillo (or Cinderella, which made all the girls on the trip excited) and another that I didn't catch the name of. They kept topping off our classes, so I probably had about 4 glasses with the meal, and yes it did make my headache worse!

Afterwards we gt to walk around the property a bit on our own and we made the trek back to Rome. On the bus they played "What happens in Vegas..." on DVD, so that made the trip go by fast. 

Next week I'm going to be in Venice for Carnivale for about 8 hours. We are going to a dessert apertivo that requires fancy clothes and a mask. It should be a very good time, and hopefully I won't be sick for it!