Aaaaah Tuscany

Broph and Clare left Nice on Sunday morning, and had a beautiful drive around the coast to Monte Carlo. The scenes were amazing.

After some hairy driving along the tollways through tunnels and across viaducts, we eventually found our way to Villa San Andrea. It is a very large property about 20km south of Florence, not far from the Florence - Sienna road. They produce wine, olive oil and some grains, as well as have many apartments in 4 different buildings spread around the property. It is owned by people who live in the Dominican Republic, originally Italian.

Again we have driven skinny windy roads to find amazing villages, castles and forts on top of hills. On Sunday evening we ate dinner at a beautiful restaurant in a very small village called Badia a Passignano.

On Monday we headed to the market at San Casciano for food supplies. Sadly not everything we need is available at the market so we had to go into the local supermarket. 

Since then we have managed to become lost a few times, but always end up somewhere beautiful. On Wednesday we lunched at a fort on top of a hill. Monteriggiano successfully defended Sienna for 3 centuries. It is now a little tourist town, leather, shoes, clothes and restaurants fill the square.

We indulged in the wine tasting offered here at Villa San Andrea. It was really interesting, discussing the making of the chianti, visiting the cellars full of different size oak barrels, and then of course the tasting. Broph was in his element.

We also went to a pasta making class, lots of fun making ravioli, tortellini and pici (a thicker spaghetti). Clare's tortellini performance was not good, but she excelled at the pici. Wilma was a great teacher. She then sent us all outside to tables with some wine and water while she cooked our pasta, using a butter and sage sauce for the filled pasta, and a fresh tomato sauce for the pici. Clare and Broph are inspired but feel certain they will need plenty of practice to get it right.

On Thursday, Broph and Clare negotiated the local buses to have a day in Florence. It is a very beautiful city, we enjoyed wandering around and then managed to spend plenty on leather. We were entranced by the architecture and the leather market.