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On Sunday we had to pack up our things because we were going to Tuscany and then straight after, driving back to Roma. In the morning we had the usual plain continental breakfast, and again I stuffed some food in my mouth. However, I do remember this red orange juice they had which was pretty amazing. Need to find that around here . After breakfast we hopped on the bus and drove 2 hours to a small country hotel outside of Sienna. To make things clear, Tuscany is not a town it's an area in Italy that's known for there country towns and wine.
When we finally got there, after our driver (Massimo) navigated a huge coach bus through the tiny country roads (I almost thought we were going to tip over the edge a couple times), I was instantly in love with the place. It is the picturesque tiny Italian country house. It was actually a series of houses, and I was soon to learn that it was a hotel, but also a place where they make their own wine and olive oil. Apparently a family lived here long ago and ran a business and they had their own family crest that they still use today on their products. They gave us a quick tour of the place, and then we wine tasted! She showed us how to evaluate different wines and what different tastes meant. It was really interesting! I feel like such a wine snob now .
After the tour and wine tasting, we went outside for their chef to show us how to make homemade pasta! It was really cool, his technique almost looked like he didn't even care but then it ended up looking really good. This picture's blog is of the guy showing us how. He made it look really easy. I even got to try and roll some of the pasta! After that we had some time before our lunch and I wandered around and found this really cute park hidden by a bunch of trees overlooking the scenery of the tuscan country. It was really beautiful and I vowed I would come back here someday.
After our short break, we sat down for what would be a delicious and long meal. I finally got to experience what a real Italian meal was like. It was a 4 course meal, and the best I've had in Italy so far. We started out with meats and cheeses and a bread with some poop looking stuff on top that I would later find out was liver. I did try it though and I just didn't like it. Then we had meat sauce and pasta. The pasta noodles were a kind I've never seen before, must be original to this place. After the pasta they brought out a second type of wine (different from the one we started our lunch with) and it was my favorite. It's called Cinderella wine and it's from an ancient grape they found that dated back a long time ago, and they dicovered it here! After the pasta was our main course of chicken and potatoes and it was DELICIOUS. Not at all like the chicken from the hotel. Let me remind you, between each course was a good amount of time, so occasionally I would get up, go outside, go to the other end of the table and talk to people. I was seriously starting to get full. For our last course they gave us a fruit pie that was amazing. I had to quickly eat it though because everyone was getting up to go buy there wine and olive oil and i didn't want to be standing in line for our last hour. After I bought some wine and olive oil it started to rain a bit, so me, jenna, rachel and erica went up to the pool which had tents and sat underneath them as we looked out onto the tuscan scenery. It was the most peaceful thing ever. I could see the fog coming over the mountains in the distance and it was so quiet and beautiful. I almost wish we could have stayed there another night because I really wanted to hike throughout there. That would be soooo cool. After a bit it was time to go so we hopped back on the bus and drove 3 hours back to Rome. I was almost a little bit depressed coming back since we had been in such a beautiful place and we were coming back to dirty, crowded Rome. But then, I realized I was in Italy and couldn't complain. Overall, fantastic trip.
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