Day 8 - Pisa and shopping and Siena, again

Today was a little more spread out for everyone. Chari Eastman, her son Ian, Johnathan and Tyler motored over to Pisa to check out some bad foundation work on a bell tower, most everyone else went the opposite direction to see if they could score some low-cost Italian fashions, and Mike and Jake Kindred went into Siena to check out some more of the city.

The shopping was at an "outlet" mall where many famous Italian brands were represented: Gucci, Prada, and, well, that's about all I know. It was not too successful of an outing as the prices were still very high (even though very discounted.) Carol Jensen did score a nice pair of shoes for about 80% of the original cost, and Ed found a nice jacket.

Siena site seeing landed Mike and Jake mostly under the city. There is a series of tunnels that connect much of the major areas of the city. Apparently not a well-known feature of the city, but maybe there will be more to tell about if the rest of us get to go (here's hoping…)

The Pisa outing was a little more successful, although it had the potential to go very wrong as it was a little more adventurous. There were a thousand ways to get there, so we took the way that was recommended by our tour guide from Monday. There was potential for some traffic, but all was OK as we got there in a little over 2 hours. We saw everything that was contained in the Field of Miracles: The Baptistry, the Duomo, and the Bell Tower. We didn't go into the Baptistry, and we were not able to climb the tower (4 hour wait - sheesh!!), so we went into the Duomo, which was quite impressive. Their were paintings everywhere, along with some mummified remains of some patron saints, which Johnathan informed, quite loudly when questioned; "That? Oh, yeah. That's a dead body in there…" The tower was quite impressive, and you could see, just barely, where they tried to correct it with each major construction attempt over the centuries. To this day it continues to slowly fall over. Sinking sand, I tells ya…

Day 7 - Wine tasting and Tuscan Chef

Another day of rest for the family. Nothing much happened in the morning, although we did find another thing we liked about Radda; they have a great little pizza restaurant in the middle of town. We found that so far, we've liked it the best of all of the pizza (we've become something of connoisseurs of Italian pizza.).

After that, Jake Kindred stayed back at the house with the kids while the rest of us "oh so cultured" adults went to a local vineyard for some wine tasting (the name eludes me at the moment, as I'm in Rome right now, and all of the info for the winery is back at the Big House). First, they showed how they made their olive oil, and then the winery facilities, and then on to the wine tasting. We had their white, and three of their reds, with each more dry than the first, finishing off with their own "Super Tuscan" and Chianti Classico wine. It's all very tightly controlled, except for the Super Tuscans', which is where the wine makers have some freedom to experiment. More about all of this Chianti wine hubbub here: http://www.chianticlassico.com/.

Lastly, we had a chef come by to make us a traditional Tuscan meal. Pasta, thinly-sliced steak (ah, a slight taste of the Motherland, although dowsed in olive oil), and a delicious salad were some of the great dishes that we enjoyed. The bonus was that they cleaned up!!

Day 6 - Siena

Went into Siena today and took a cooking class. La Squela del Chuccina ti Lelle. Lelle was the professor of the school, and spoke only Italian, but could understand it a little. Another younger woman translated for her, which only added to the experience. Lelle did most of the preparation in front of us, but we did get to make our own pasta from start to finish, including making our own spinach and ricotta ravioli, which was much easier that I thought, just time consuming. When we were done, we feasted on all of the dishes that we had helped prepare, and it was truly delicious. The roast leg of lamb in a herb crust was excellent, and from what I understand the lamb that they use here is much better than what we usually get back in the states because they use a younger lamb. For the more skittish, we also had pork tenderloin, which was equally good. My favorite dish was the pappa col pomodoro, which is a tomato soup made with stale bread, basil, garlic, olive oil, and broth. The best tomato soup I have ever had, including the tomato basil soup at La Madeline.

We headed for home shortly after a brief run around Siena; everyone was pretty tired after the cooking class, and the kids did great, even though most of the food was not quite to their liking (though they both loved the meat dish!!)

Day 5 - Florence and Michelangelo's David

Today was our day to go into Florence (Firenze). The trip there was a 40 minute drive to Montevarchi, with a 45 minute train ride to Florence. Once there, we saw many of the shops, most of them very well-known names: Gucci, Prada, McDonalds, etc. There was also a section of town with nothing but a string of jewelry shops, selling mostly gold chains and earrings. Most of it was very nice, and Mackenzie got her third pair of earrings there (yikes). After that we wandered over to the central square where we had lunch at a restaurant that was near the base of a big clock tower. It looked to me that it was about 30 stories high, sitting at the top of a castle-like structure (hmm, maybe it was a castle... ) . The food was very good and very reasonably priced - which we learned when we got the bill was due to the fact that they make their money on the "grande" drinks, which ran 8 euros for iced tea and cokes (yes folks, that's about $11) and 9 euros for the beers (at least those of us who got beer felt like we got more of our moneys worth). Needless to say, we started asking prices before ordering from here on. Once we were done there, we went to see Michelangelo's David. Wow, that was cool! Much more impressive in real life that it is in pictures. When you think that is was done a half a millennia ago and realize there were no CAD machines or Dremmel tools, you realize just what an impressive feat it is to sculpt something like that, especially from a solid piece of marble.

We finished up there and took the train back to Montevarchi, where we took a scenic drive back to, you guessed it, Radda in Chianti for a not-so-nice, somewhat over-priced meal (you can't win 'em all, but we still like Radda)

Day 4 - Rest

Too many hours of winding roads and passengers getting nauseous called for some rest. Johnathan has been fighting a fever, possibly a stomach bug, pretty much since we got to the house on Saturday, and we're ready for him to get better. He's at least up and about today. I'm sitting here writing this in an internet café in Radda in Chianti (told you we'd be back :-), although I'm not online yet. Haven't figured out how I'm going to do this, maybe blog, maybe e-mail. We'll see.

Day 3 - "Tour" of Tuscany

Today was the day that we got all of the "incidents" of the trip out of the way. We started out with a planned tour of Tuscany with our tour guide Sergio. When he got here, turns out he had clipped a back-hoe plow attachment and shattered the back window of the van. So we followed him in the cars as he led us around Tuscany. When we returned, we had a mishap with a mobile street vendor who accidentally dropped one of his truck's side panels on the windshield of one of the cars as it drove by, shattering it in one corner. While everyone was working out the details, Chari lost one of her contacts. So there we were, all of us, looking for her contact, including the street vendor and another person in the village.

With all of that said, we had a great time going throughout parts of Tuscany. Our first stop was in Radda in Chianti, a wonderful little village with a playground, park, and some other shops, including an internet café (woohoo!!) which provided the ability for this update. We're going to go back to that place again, since it's only 10 minutes away. From there we when to lunch in Greve in Chianti, then stopped by a pottery place where we got a chance to see how they hand-painted the pottery. Learned artists who made painting pottery look so easy. Beautiful. Our tour ended with another drive over to Montevarchi to buy train tickets for our outing to Florence and a stock-up trip to the equivalent of a Super Walmart (complete with a home-made ice cream store.) Even though this was not really the tour we had hoped for, it was still a great way for us to get to know the area for the rest of the trip.

FYI: The Chianti region is just that: regional, not political. It's all very interesting. Check out the Wikipedia article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chianti

Day 2 - Rest and Montevarchi

Some of us got up as early as 5:30AM, while some others slept until 1:30 PM. This first day was just for recovery. And we're glad we did it. Pam and Mackenzie slept in until almost 11:00, while Johnathan (getting over a fever from that night) and Tyler got up around 8:30 to have some breakfast and watch Spongebob Schwimmdreg (Germany was the only satellite station putting out children's TV, other than something from Romania that was just a little too unfamiliar (read:scary) to watch). The first thing out of Johnathan's mouth when we woke up was "It's really beautiful out side". There is no AC in our house, which get's close to unbearable in the middle of the day upstairs, but is quite nice in the morning and evening/night. From our window you can look over the country-side, many different olive orchards and vineyards in full view. It's like something out of a movie, except it's right there. Very surreal for a not-so-well travelled American.

After a few naps, relaxation, and some playtime in the pool (wimpy parental units never made it into the cold water), we went into the near by town of Montevarchi, which had a wonderful little risturante right next to the elusive train station upon which we finally stumbled (street signs are not really all that helpful on a micro level.) We made it back to the house just in time to enjoy some wine out on the porch before sunset.