Italy
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San Luciano winery tour
Just outside Monte San Savino, and near our villa Pia Modere, lies the San Luciano Winery, an artisanal vineyard with 63 hectares of grapes, including Trebbiano, malvasia, grechetto, sangiovese, canaiolo, and montepulciano varieties. We were greeted by Proprietor Stefano Ziantoni who graciously explained his processes and helped us sample the wines, which are lovely. .…
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Volterra Day
Report #5 — On the recommendation of Rick Steves, we set out for Volterra, a good two million hours away. After a night of heavy eating and many, many mountain switchbacks, carsickness set in for some of our party. Patty navigated, Mike drove, and Liz lurched grimly from side to side. We stopped for lunch…
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Two days in Tuscany
Report #6 — The Villa Podere Miri is the place to be for painting, reading, palm-reading, swimming and resting. But that doesn’t mean we stay. The day brought a visit to San Sepulchro, another Tuscan hill town, and then a return visit to Arezzo since it wasn’t raining. Some light shopping was in order, but…
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Cortona, another beautiful hill town
A leisurely start to the day with cold pizza for breakfast. We were the last of our group to leave the villa, then drove to Cortona, being led all the way by our GPS girl. She is very strict, although her Italian pronunciation is very bad. Cortona is a crazy place, with slopes that seem…
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Lucignano in the rain
Report #4 — Eggs for breakfast and then off to explore. A day of pouring rain, so we drove until we arrived at a town — Lucignano — that happened to be between downpours. More Italian doors to photograph. Nothing to eat, though, as everything in Italy is closed between 1 and 5, plus it’s…
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Arriving at Villa Podere Miri
Report #3 — Not far from Arezzo is our villa. We arrived at the gate, and found Patty Matas and Linda Harvey waiting, bleary-eyed from an all-night train trip from Salzburg. We waited, fully cooperative with the instructions that we were NOT to arrive early. It was 3:30. Check-in was 4:30. We waited some more.…
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A short stop in Arezzo
Report #2 — Only a few short hours down the AutoStrada is the charming medieval town of Arezzo. Cobblestone streets, picturesque shops, and many fashionable women in impractical shoes. We arrived in the rain, and sought shelter at the first restaurant we could find. Ravioli with burro e salvia (butter and sage) for Mike and…
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We’ve made it to Italy!
Report number one – Bologna: The flight was long, grueling and cramped but got us here in one (I guess two?) pieces. We took a bus from the airport to the center of the old city, got off at the first stop and ran into Patty on the crowded sidewalk in about three minutes! She…
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