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Euro Adventures Pt 14 - Towers, Tuscany and Tonnes of Wine

Day 13 - what a long day!! It was, surprise surprise, another driving day. Departing my beautiful Venezia and heading into the magical hills of Tuscany. The home of some the best wines in the world. Our driving day started off like any other - drive drive drive, bored bored bored, toilet stop, drive drive drive, bored bored bored, but then we stopped at Pisa. 



Pisa is only a small town in the rand scheme of things and we were able to walk in and see the amazing, architecturally confusing, leaning tower of Pisa. It was a long walk from the coach parking to the Town Square, which housed the Leaning Tower, a beautiful cathedral and a marble cemetery building (which was a little creepy). I'm slowly starting to realise that everything we do seems to be quite a long and painful walk from the coach parking. Those Topdeck bastards! 



It was so goddam hot and Alysha and I were both feeling pretty homesick so we took our typical tourist shots of the tower and headed back to the bus. Along the way there were some charming men who referred to us as 'Lady Gaga' and 'Miss Australia' were trying to sell us some knock off wallets and bags. I managed to haggle myself a Michael Kors wallet and handbag at a very reasonable price. It's like I was born to haggle! 

We waited on the bus for the rest of the Tor to get back (Alysha and I left the group about half an hour before everyone else cuz we were so hot). Then we drove another hour and a half to check into our accomodation - very very small two person bungalows. We very quickly tidied ourselves up (we were massively sweaty) and hopped back on the bus. WE WERE GOING TO A VINEYARD!!

About 30 minutes of driving down very beautiful, very windy, very narrow Tuscan roads, we arrived at the Villa Buonasera... Shocker, the driveway was too narrow for the coach so we had to walk up and down massive gravel hills to get to the homestead. So fun. NOT. I may be getting a tad bitter about all of the walking in ridiculous temperatures... But I don't know. It was so picturesque and beautiful at the homestead. Surrounded by beautiful vineyards, it was just amazing. 


The owner took us on a private tour of the grounds and explained to us how they harvest and process their wine. She was a gorgeous Italian woman and her English was not the best - but she was very adorable and we found her hilarious. We then had a wine tasting with matched 4 course dinner. 

On the menu:
Entree
A Rosé paired with Italian breads, tomatoes, white beans, pork sausage and melted cheese, and a very strange spelt salad
Main
Chianti Classico (Red wine) matched with a delicious ragu pasta
Cheese course
Chianti Reservé (red wine again) with an assortment of cheeses and cured meats
Desert
'Santina' desert wine and a traditional Italian cake.



It was amazeballs. The food, the views, the wines - it just worked! We headed back up and down the gravel hills to the coach and back to the hostel for showers and an early night for our big day in Florence tomorrow! 
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