Tuscany

We're just back from a simply wonderful couple of days in Tuscany. We went as guests of a work customer celebrating a trading anniversary. Staying at this lovely hotel in the rolling Tuscan hills (I'll do a seperate review of it on my hotel blog). We lunched at this traditional Italian guesthouse in Montopoli in Val d'Arno, which was exquisite and accompanied with beautiful views. We also visited this medieval castle and tasted the local desert wine with almond biscuits. The highlight of the couple of days was going to the Fattoria di Corsignano vineyard. This is a working vineyard run by Mario Bartoli and his lovel wife Elena Gallo. Set in the Tuscan hills, we spent a wonderful day there learning how to cook Tuscan cuisine, drinking the wonderful Chianti Classico (which Mario makes) and then eating everything that we prepared on long tables, set under a pergola with breathtaking views of the countryside. What made this day so great is that the Mario and Elena were such lovely people, everyone who went didn't want to leave and I'd recommend anyone travelling to Tuscany to go and visit them, we'll go back for sure. Finally, we visited Siena. You may recall Siena from the opening scene of the James Bond film, Quantum of Solace. It's where the horse race is set. It's a stunning City, steeped in Italian history, sitting on top of a large clay mountain. Dinner was at Taverna San Giuseppe restaurant with typical Tuscan cuisine, washed down with further bottles of the local Chianti Classico, I'd recommend you to eat here if you ever go, but make sure you book. We packed a lot into two days, it was however, really worth it.