Chianti

(Click on the photo for full view; this blog's template likes to cut off my horizontal photos)

I wasn't able to fall asleep until about 3:30AM the night(/morning) before our day trip to Chianti and we had to meet at the train station at 7:30AM. You also have to give us time to walk to the train station, which is approximately an half hour walk. Needless to say, it was a bit of a rough morning. 

We met up with the rest of the group who booked this trip with Florence for Fun, a sort of travel agency that organizes trips for study abroad students. We had two guides with us, Remigio and Luca. The bus seemed more like a charter bus than say, public transportation, but I'm still pretty unclear about what kind of bus it is. It took about an hour to get to Chianti from Florence and the ride was scenic enough. 

Unfortunately, it was raining in Chianti, but only light showers while we were there. The mud just made the 4-mile hike through the vineyards a little challenging. The cold air was really nice though. I wish we could take more hikes in Florence instead of just walking all over the city. We took a 40 minute break during our hike at San Leolino church, a Romanesque church. A black cat was guarding it, which was both creepy and cute. Remigio gave us a nerdy recount of the history of Chianti and the church itself. The church land was established by Etruscans and Chianti is basically man-made. 

After the hike, a friend of Remigio received us for lunch and wine tasting. For appetizers, we had bread, naturally, and prosciutto and salami followed by two courses of pasta (pesto, pomodoro). We tried two different bottles of wine: Terre di Panzano Chianti, which is made from a combination of three types of grapes, and Granducale, which is made solely from San Giovese grapes. After the wine and our meal, they brought us biscotti and a shot of a dessert wine and then everyone's least favorite, a shot of grappa. I was able to polish off about 5 grappa shots because that's how brave I am. 

I'm not going to lie-- coming back to Florence was a little bit disappointing. The air is not as fresh and there are far too many people, but I got used to it again soon enough. It's definitely not as relaxing as Chianti, which I actually prefer to Fiesole as well. 

Kylie & I + wine

Yours truly + grappa