Topic Two:  We drank Tuscan wines in a castle in the Chianti countryside.

Right before we left for Italy, I became possessed by a force that insisted we book a tour to somewhere in Italy outside of Florence.  I didn’t care where – it could have been Pisa or Rome or wherever, but we were seeing more of Italy than what we could walk to dammit!  Alex and I had just booked our honeymoon, so I made a trip back to our travel agent (Kelly at Liberty Travel in Danbury, CT).  I’m typically a do-it-myself kind of traveler, but something about going to Italy for the first time scared me, and I wanted to book something through someplace I trusted to take care of it if something went wrong.

As a sidenote, I will always book through a travel agent now, because as I explained in this post, we almost had a disaster when we arrived in Florence, and I’m not interested in dealing with that ever again!

Liberty Travel deals with Caf Tours in Florence, and the tour that best fit our budget and itinerary was a wine tour in the Tuscan countryside.  I booked it.

First off, Caf Tours was awesome.  If we’d been staying in Florence longer, I would have booked a second tour because we had such a fantastic time on this one.  We got on a giant tour bus and it drove us straight out to the Chianti.  “The Chianti,” in case you don’t know, is the area of Italy, in Tuscany, where San Genovese grapes are grown and (surprise!) chianti wine is produced.

There were two stops on our afternoon tour.  The first was in a small village in Tuscany called San Brigida.  At least, I think that’s what it was called.  I tried to look it up, but I couldn’t find any reference to it at all.  It was really small…

The town takes its name from a Catholic saint who was exiled here at one time.  I’m not going to bore you with all the history of that, though, because there was something much cooler to be found in this village.  We got off the bus and started walking, and one of the first things we become aware of is… singing.  GOOD singing.  After walking a little ways up the road, we discovered the source of the music was a little old Italian man, sitting on a stone wall, under a tree, singing opera.  SERIOUSLY!!  You don’t get more authentic than that!

The second stop on our tour was the castle – Castello del Trebbio.

This experience was cool for many reasons:

1)  The castle is 900 years old, was originally home to the Patsi family of Florence, and is home to an original piece of art by Donatello:

As if that’s not cool all by itself, the piece of artwork  is a bit of a shrine to one of the greatest grudges ever: the Patsi family vs. the Medici family.  See, the Medicis had all the political power in Florence, which made the Patsis have to settle for the #2 spot – money but no political power.  So the Patsis made a deal with the Pope, and they tried to assassinate the entire Medici family one Sunday while they were at church.  The problem was that they missed a couple of Medicis… maybe they didn’t make it to church that day.  The remaining Medicis were a bit pissed off, and they came to this castle and killed off the entire Patsi family and removed any trace they had ever existed from Tuscany.  Any trace – except this crest, probably because of who cast it.

2) The family that owns the castle still lives in the castle.  How cool is that?  They. Live. In. A. Castle.  In Tuscany.  And they let people come and check out their awesomeness.  Makes your life seem a little less special, right?

3) They grow grapes and make chianti at the castle.  This location happens to sit on a border for 2 different growing regions for San Genovese grapes, which means this producer can make two types of chianti.  We tasted both, and liked one so much that we bought a bottle.  I believe they sell it in the US, so if you ever see a bottle of chianti with the label “Castello del Trebbio,” now you know where it came from!  Oh yeah… and the wine tasting is included in the cost of your tour.

4) You’re surrounded by olives, grapes, Tuscany, and a castle.  Makes it hard to be anything except happy and relaxed.

On our way back to Florence from Castello del Trebbio, just when we thought our experience couldn’t have been any more picture-perfect, we saw a rainbow:

I know, I know… cheesy.  But true!

I’m sure this afternoon tour is not what everyday Italian life is about.  But vacations aren’t really about everyday life, are they?  Going on this tour was one of the best things we did in Italy, so if you’re planning a trip to Florence, I’d highly recommend booking yourself on one!