The power went out on our last day at Le Torri. Then it came on again, then it went out again. Back and forth. Needless to say, we didn’t have much internet access, so it was hard to plan our day. The guys were contemplating a cooking class in Firenze, but they hadn’t heard back. Plan B was to head to Siena again.

I went to the Le Torri office and called about private a class. The man said he’d have to check with the chef and call me back. About an hour later the class was scheduled, another day in Firenze. Steve and Orion had to meet the chef at 4:30 by the Dante statue. Rebecca and I sat with them until the chef came, then left to shop.

But first, one last gelato break. We walked around a lot, looking for a bag for Rebecca and shoes for me. Neither of us got what we wanted, but Rebecca got some cool shoes. Around 8:00 we met back up with the guys. They had eaten the food they made, but Rebecca and I were still hungry so we stopped and ate. While we ate it started raining really hard. There was lightening and thunder – reminded me of Ohio.

The guys enjoyed the cooking class. They learned how to make a simple sauce and all the ways to add to it for variety. And they hand-made some pasta! Here’s some info on the class. They both felt it was well worth it, and would have loved taking several more classes.

We went to bed around 11:00p or 12:00a and woke up at 3:00a to get ready and leave. On the drive to the airport I started noticing these little, tiny things on the road that looked like leaves, then realized they were frogs. At one point the quantity of frogs increased severely, such that I COULD NOT avoid running them over. I concluded that it was some sort of rite of initiation – if you go and sit in the road without getting run over, you win the respect of your froggy peers.

The flight home was so freaking tiring. On the first flight there was a woman ripping pages out of a magazine. It was EXTREMELY annoying – it sufficiently interrupts both sleeping and reading. I kept thinking, why don’t you do that at home?!?! I think it wasn’t her magazine, but she ripped out so many pages, she may as well have taken it!

By the time we got home I had been awake for 19 hours and operating on 3 or so hours of sleep. Luckily I managed to stay awake until 9pm, for a total of 27 waking hours. What a tiring journey!

Need I say more? Well, I guess if you’ve never had Brunello I should elaborate. And there’s a pretty good chance you haven’t because Italy doesn’t export a lot of it to the US. The winery was in Montalcino, Ciacci Piccolomini d’Aragona. Our hostess was another very interesting woman (like the one in Montespertoli). She had lived all sorts of places around the world and spoke about seven languages, making us all feel inferior. On the other hand she also made us feel quite at home, like honored guests. The wine was fabulous. She poured four wines at once so we could compare the taste. Its really smart, because the Brunello stands out like a gem. We weren’t planning on bringing anything home – until we tasted that. Here’s some more info on their Brunello. (pictures from the tour)

Around the corner was an abbey with some monks who chant every day at certain times, The Abbey of Sant’Antimo Montalcino. We stopped by to hear them. I think its safe to say the four of us agreed – it wasn’t that impressive. I think we just caught them on an bad day, or bad prayer – a bad prayer day. (pictures)

Then we stopped at another winery, I don’t remember the name. The wine was ok, but the people weren’t as friendly. After that we were pretty hungry so we headed into Montalcino, which is a small, hilltop medieval town. We ate the picnic lunch that we brought then walked around a bit. Most things were closed (because it was between 1:00 and 3:00) and it was very empty. The layout of the town was neat though, the long roads weaved back and forth down the hill with shops on either side. (pictures)

Instead of killing another hour in order to head to another winery (because they wouldn’t open again until 3:00) we decided to head back to Le Torri. We hung out and walked to a nearby restaurant for dinner.

Another day trip to Florence. We finally made it to that special sandwich shop, the Oil Shoppe. My friend Shawna recommended it. Apparently its all she lived on when she did her studies abroad for six months. The sandwiches were quite good, all four of us devoured them happily.

After eating we saw the Firenze Duomo. I was really blown away by the outside, striped with pink, white and green marble. Very ornate, which I love. The inside, however, was not so impressive. I think the inside of the Siena Duomo wins, and the outside of the Firenze Duomo wins. What contest are they winning? The pretty, ornate, Italian things contest. And Siena and Firenze are enemies, so these things matter. (my pictures, mostly the outside because, like I said, the inside is boring)

Then we trekked to the top of Piazzele Michealangelo, which harbors the best view of Firenze (info on Wikipedia). It was quite breathtaking. There was a couple taking wedding pictures, I snapped a few shots of them. I’ve heard the view is even more spectacular when the city is covered in snow, which only happens about once every twenty years. (my pictures)

That night we ate near Le Torri, and guess who pulled up to the parking lot at the same exact time? Eh, you’ll never guess – it was the young couple and parents from Florida from dinner the night before. How funny is that? Very, I tell ya!

We had a pretty calm, easy day. We drove into town for snacks to make a picnic lunch and brought them back to Le Torri. We set up outside and munched our goodies for a while before discovering the swarm of mosquitoes who were also happily munching.

Later we went to a small winery in Montespertoli. The woman who poured for us was quite charming. She was from Spain but had been living in Montespertoli for about seven years. She taught us how to properly pronounce the city’s name and a few other words.

Before dinner we hung out by the pool at Le Torri for a while. Got bit by some more mosquitoes. Then headed back into Montespertoli for dinner. The restaurant was pretty busy. Even though Gabriele called ahead for us, they only had two two-person tables. A couple at a four-person table noticed our situation and moved for us. We tried to buy their dessert to thank them, but the restaurant bought it instead.

The whole place was full of Americans. We spoke a little to the table next to us. A young couple and what I assume were the guy’s parents. They were all from Florida. I think they were celebrating the young woman’s pregnancy, or just simply vacationing. They actually helped us try to communicate with the server a few times.

Our first wedding anniversary (Oct 5th)! We began the day by trying to go to Coop (grocery store) to pick up a few things, but it closed the minute we walked up to the door. Most stores close between 1:00 and 3:00 throughout Italy. If you forget that fact, its quite annoying. It got us a couple of times.

We ended up eating lunch in Montespertoli (that’s monti-SPARE-toli, singsong), which was the closest significant town to Le Torri (our agriturismo, if you don’t know what that is, why aren’t you reading these in order?). Guess what we ate? Yep, pasta again! And for dessert? You know it, gelato! We went back to Le Torri with full bellies and I took a nap (that ice cream just took over!).

Around 4:00 we drove about 45 minutes to Siena and walked around. I really liked Siena, its so charming and enchanting. We saw the Duomo, which was quite impressive. The inside was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It felt gloomy and magical, like a Tim Burton set. If you ever make it to Siena, you MUST go inside the Duomo. (More about the cathedral) (My pictures)

We walked some more then made our way over to Cane e Gatto (dog and cat). The meal was fantastic, another situation where you sit down and they feed you what they have that day, you don’t choose. The owner and his helper were extremely nice. The perfect evening for our anniversary. (pictures)

First full day in Tuscany – off to Firenze (Florence, why do we call it that?) to walk around and visit the Uffizi gallery. We attempted to have lunch at a specific sandwich shop, but we didn’t have enough time before our scheduled museum visit. And thank goodness we had tickets ahead of time, that line was long!!! The museum was very big with lots of art, and walking around was so tiring. Those places are always so dry, they just suck the energy right out of you!

The older paintings from the 14th century with gold paint became quite tedious and boring. There were so many – same thing over and over. As time progressed through each gallery section the subjects, positions, styles and artistic abilities got so much better. I found the later art (late 15th century and 16th century) much more interesting, like Filippo Lippi and Botticelli. I especially liked this painting. Here are the pictures I took before they caught me taking pictures.

We were pretty tired after walking around the overwhelming museum, so we ended up at a wine bar. We were supposed to have one drink and carry on, but we just couldn’t muster up the strength. The wine guy, Zino, was super nice. He gave us a lot of recommendations for wineries to visit. He said paintings are not the only art in Florence, here you have art in a bottle! While we sat and enjoyed some delicious wine it started to rain for the first time on our vacation. It wasn’t raining too hard, so I actually didn’t mind that much.

I also saw a dog that looked JUST LIKE Joe (picture). I stopped his owner and tried to show him a picture of Joe, but he really didn’t care. And he didn’t speak any English.

Finally we left to have dinner. The food was pretty good and we had steak for the first time in Italy. It was huge! Orion and Steve shared it, Rebecca and I just had a few bites. Oh and by the way, bread in Tuscany doesn’t have any salt – its terrible! The bread in other parts of Italy was great though.

Sadly, we left our gracious hosts at Cancabaia and drove two and half hours south to our next destination, Tuscany. We were staying at Le Torri, an agriturismo in Montespertoli. An agriturismo is basically a farmhouse turned resort. Read more about them here. Our host, Gabriele, checked us in and showed us to our villa.

We were impressed with how nice the place was. We felt the web site didn’t really do it justice. That night there was a welcome dinner for all the guests (about 18-20 of us). Gabriele’s mother prepared a home cooked meal. The food and company were great, but I was pretty tired.

When I finally made it back to our room I logged on and noticed that Gabriele added us as friends on Facebook and bragged about our arrival for us. Soon after he uploaded some pictures from dinner. I felt that was a really nice touch for us young, web-addicted folks.

I actually woke up early and went for a run. We brought our running shoes and some workout clothes thinking we would try to exercise, and this was the first (and sadly last) time I busted them out. Running down the country road so early was quite peaceful. The only ones awake were me, some dogs and some chickens. When I got back I showered and everyone else started waking up because this morning we were going to get a tour of the Pamresan farm!

Bruno showed us where they turn the milk into cheese; then the tubs the cheese sits in; then the prized barn where it ages for about 21 months. The inspectors come and knock on the cheese to see if its worthy of the Parmasen stamp. If not, they burn it – ha, just kidding. (Parmesan tour pictures)

After our early tour we all took a little nap. Later we went to Parma and walked around. We all enjoyed Parma more than Modena. It just seemed friendlier and more city-like. We got sandwiches for lunch and Orion ordered raw horse meat! He seemed to thoroughly enjoy it.

Later that night Bruno suggested we have dinner at “grandma’s house” – Da Nuccia. We had a really hard time finding it. The place was on a dark, residential, back road and the sign was about the size of my forearm – with no lighting. Fortunately she spoke no English – we had a blast trying to guess what she was saying. At one point we had a plate of meat with a few pieces left on it. She came over and asked, “ancora?” We thought she wanted to take it away, but she was asking if we wanted more – encore!

When we got back to our B&B we exchanged drinks with hosts, Bruno and Simona. Orion mixed them sazeracs and Bruno gave us fruit infused liquors. We had so much fun talking and exchanging cultural ideals and intricacies. We kept him up until 2:30am, not knowing he had to work the next day.

Our first morning at Cancabaia we awoke to damn cow moaning at 5:38am. One of the dogs chimed in and howled along, which I have to admit was kinda cute because the cow already woke me up anyway. I managed to fall back to sleep and we when finally got up there was a wonderful breakfast waiting for us. It included Parmesan cheese (young and old) from their farm, breads, jams, fresh milk, fresh yogurt, Parma ham – they treated us so well!

After filling our bellies (maybe too much) we headed off to a day of touring. First stop: La Perla, a Prosciutto producer. Our lovely tour guide, who I am convinced was 12 years old, lead us through the entire process from salting, to freezing to less freezing to less freezing – basically it goes through a bunch of rooms gradually cooling to a regular temperature. In the end they stick a horse bone into five important spots on the leg to determine if its good. If all goes well the leg gets stamped Prosciutto di Parma, or Parma Ham, otherwise it becomes regular old Prosciutto (or if its actually bad they burn it).

When we finished up the tour they fed us several different delicious hams and Prosciuttos. Then they brought out Steve’s new favorite drink – a white horn infused liquor. White horn is a local tree in their backyard that grows berries, which they infuse with alcohol. He seriously wanted to take the bottle home. (La Perla pictures)

Next, a balsamic vinegar maker: Acetaia Medici. Yes, she was one of those Medicis, but related before that line split off. This tour was also quite simple, they move the vinegar from barrel to barrel and 25 years later you have balsamic vinegar! Ok, I’m over simplifying, but seriously, its almost that easy. After showing us the barrels we tasted their top three balsamic vinegars: 12-18 years, 18-25 years and 25+. We ended up buying one of the middle bottles. (Acetaia Medici pictures)

Then we had some time to kill so we hung out in Modena. The city was a little boxy, it felt sparse and full of college-aged individuals. Later we had dinner on the way back at a somewhat fancy restaurant, Ancalda (I probably spelled that wrong). We were all a little disappointed. The service really sucked and the food wasn’t that great. Steve was especially disappointed because he was so smitten with Capellis from the night before.

The drive home was interesting though. The GPS died when we had about 15 minutes left. And on the way we saw quite a few hookers along the country roads. At one of the many roundabouts we passed there was one on each corner, one of each flavor!

Congrats to Amy Lee for correctly guessing last month’s logo, Purina. And now for the October logo – take a guess!