Cooking in Tuscany.

Today we spent the day shopping for groceries, cooking, drinking wine, eating and drinking wine. By the way - my clothes are starting to get tight.

We met our chef "Laura" at a small town called Castellina.



We bought the meat at a local butcher:



and the produce was purchased at a local market:



Here are other random pictures from the town of Castellina and our grocery shopping trip.









This was our menu:



We then headed to Laura's home for our class. What a lot of fun. Here are some pictures of the class, views from her house and the group.




















When the class was over, Laura gave us all Tuscan spoon dishes with the name of her Villa on them. It was such a nice day, the food was delicious and the weather amazing.

Tomorrow we are off to Pienza and Montalcino.

I finally got my Gelato............but no Villa

Well folks, it has only taken 5 days but I finally got my Gelato and it was delicioso (is that Italian?).

In the morning we left for Arezzo. We entered the town at the top of the city and walked our way down. The top of the city was pretty quiet with a church and public square. Some of the scenes from "Its a Beautiful Life" were filmed in this square.



As we walked towards the bottom of the city - it became very busy and commercial. We all split up and headed in different directions meandering through the streets. It is a pretty city - but in the end we felt it was a little too commercial for us. The good news is though...... I finally got my Gelato!



I have to say that the weather so far has been amazing. We have been leaving the hotel most mornings by 9:00 am. All we have needed in the morning is a light sweater. Most days, we have had to drop the sweater by 11:00.

After Arezzo we headed towards Cortona (with cheque book in hand).

Here are a couple of pictures of the view from the top of Cortona.




We have had the same Guide and Driver all week and they have been amazing. Can you image two men putting up with 15 women for a whole day. Rafaello (the guide) has it down to a science. He must know every washroom in Tuscany and Pierro (the Driver) drops us off as close to the city centre as possible. They also give us extra time in some of the cities to shop. (PS... I haven't bought anything yet!)

Here are some of the side streets in Cortona.







A few of us stopped at Illy's for a Cappucino (ok.. I had tea!) This is Helen, Susan, Leslie and Judy. Maybe this is why I haven't bought anything - I keep stopping to eat.



Here is an tid-bit for Cortona. Everyone comes to the city to see the "fountain" from the movie. The only problem is the fountain never existed and was only erected for the film. When the movie was over - the Director gave the fountain to the city to be left in the square. After a while the locals requested that the fountain be removed because it took up too much space and they had less room for the local market. The fountain was removed.

Tomorrow we are off to Castellina in Chianti for our cooking class. I am not a big drinker (well I wasn't) and don't like to cook - and here I am in Tuscany - go figure.

Can you say Chianti......

Today involved wine, food with wine and more wine.

We spent the day in the Chianti region. Our first stop was at the cellars of Castello de Verrazzano located near Greve in Chianti. The grounds and views from this winery were amazing. You could see forever. We had a tour of the winery then spent a lot of time "tasting". I had been to some wine tastings in the Niagara Region but this is different. It isn't a small sampling either, they keep it coming and bring out bread and olive oil, different wines (I think we tasted four different wines here) and the most amazing balsamic vinegar I have ever had.

Then we headed into Panzano in Chianti and had what was called a "light lunch" on the top floor of a Tuscan butcher shop - the owner is the famous Tuscan butcher - Dario Cecchini. This is what they consider a "light lunch" (with wine).

We then spent some time in Radda and then headed to the cellars at Castello di Brolio.

Me in Radda.



The second winery was very different from the one we visited in the morning. More high tech and elaborate. There were three different wines we tried here. Check out this table we had the tasting at.......

We started our day of wine tasting at 10:00 am - there was a lot of laughter on the bus by the time we were finished. When we finally sat down for our evening dinner - not one of us ordered wine with our meal.

Tomorrow we are off to Arezzo and Cortona. I am bringing my cheque book in case I find a Villa to buy :)

San Gimignano and Siena

I have great intentions (cough, cough). When I get home I hope to "Start" and actually finish a scrapbook of the trip. If I blog the details each day, I will be able to use the blog to scrapbook the trip. If I don't write them down - I will never remember them all.

We left the Villa (we are staying at the Borgo di Cortefreda) at 9:00 am and headed to San Gimignano. We lucked out with weather. It rained all last week and the sun is shining for us this week. Luckily the tour buses hadn't arrived and the town was pretty quiet until we started to leave.

Here are some pics of some of the group, views and awes.







After San Gimignano we headed for lunch at Agriturismo Il Castagnolino. www.agriturismoilcastagnolino.com This is first - a working farm and then a guest house. The owners gave us a tour of their herb farm and grounds and then we sat down outside to a sampling of home made foods. Everything was home made and they used the herbs from the garden. Even the Gelato and Olive Oil was home made. The flavour of everything was so pure - my taste buds have come alive. And yes folks... wine was involved.

Here are some pics of the lunch (literally) and views. This first picture is the view from their property. Wow... I couldn't imagine waking up to that every morning.





See... I told you - I literally took pictures of the food.









This is where we ate - amazing!




And our hosts.



After lunch we headed to Siena for a guided walking tour of the town. We lucked out - only once a year the floors of the Duomo are uncovered for 6 weeks. We were able to see all the inlay work. It truly is beautiful. I had taken a video of the inside of the Duomo. Unfortunately the internet connection is very slow and I didn't want to take the chance to upload the video.



Here is a picture of the Square in Siena.





We ended the day with Dinner (and more wine) in a Medievale restaurant in Siena called Gallo Nero.



I have lost track of the days and what we are suppose to do tomorrow. I do know though that wine will be involved. I think there is a theme starting.



Nite.