Tuscany and Florence

Tuscany & Florence


.... the adventure continues ... Super sweet Panda. Check. Mediocre GPS. Check. Awesome company. Check. Okay, so we're headed from Venice to our place in Tuscany area. It's the boyfriends birthday and he really wants to stop and check out Bologna. So we do. Well, we basically drove around the outside of the city center pretending that we (and the GPS) knew where we were going. We totally missed the major monuments of the city and the rain that we left on the autostrada (highway) was heading our way -- and I was hungry -- so we headed onward.

We drive through a gazillion roundabout, which boyfriend finally got the hang of, then we showed up at our villa, Villa il Poggiale. It should have been pretty simple to find because there are signs everywhere with the name of the place, but the GPS swore that the address was really like .8 miles south of where it actually was. Anyhow -- we arrive, we hand over our passports for check-in, the receptionist gives us a dinner recommendation and a tour of the villa.

The villa was huge -- the main floor there was a drawing room with an honor bar, the upstairs was our room and a few others with 3 or 4 studies in between them, the downstairs was the breakfast room and what I'm assuming are more rooms, and the basement was the spa. The spa offered massage services, but the jacuzzi and the sauna were open to all guests.

So we decide to drive into San Casciano to grab a snack. We ended up finding this little deli/pizza place called Pizzera Rosticceria "da Cesare". We split a large pizza for 7 euro and it was amazing. The best pizza of the trip, hands down.

Made it back to the Villa and the receptionist stops us to inform us that since it's the boyfriends birthday he called the restaurant that we have reservations at for dinner and they have a special surprise for us. Fast forward to dinner --- HOLY GEEZ IT WAS GREAT --- We dined at Cinque di Vino also in the small town of San Casciano. We arrive and it is a 8 table restaurant. We were greeted by the owner and he immediately seats us and pops open a bottle of nice champagne for boyfriends birthday. We start perusing the menu and the owner started suggesting things left and right. We basically said yes to everything and ended up eating the most amazing meal. I would recommend this place to anyone ... it's worth the drive from just about anywhere in Italy.

The next day we got up, headed to breakfast --which we then realized we were the only people staying at the villa -- then we ventured into Florence and Chianti wine country. Florence was beautiful. It had some pretty grand structures and famous works of art. We spent the morning walking around the rather busy city and then grabbed lunch then drove into wine country.
















Because we went in the off season, the wineries were not yet open, but we did stop and buy a bottle of local wine to head back to the villa to drink while we watched the sun set. The sunset was great -- and boyfriend even helped me fashion a sun dial out of rocks! For dinner we headed to La Cantinetta Del Nonno. Who knew that pork and potatoes could be so simple and yummy!!

Next up: Cinque Terre