Podere San Luigi Colle di Val d'Elsa

... could use for our research papers on Italian culture. All in all, it made me think how that was exactly how I would like my apartment to be when I get my own one. Tea set and all. I've become surprisingly addicted to tea since I came here. The English variety, of course, with milk and sugar, but I'm still rather surprised that I've come to enjoy tea so much in Italy. Rather than, say, coffee.

... tree. I barely worked on the tree before Vilmo popped up saying he wanted to take me to the Frontoyo, where they make the oil. So Christa and I helped him place all the heavy cassetta (crates) full of olives into the trailer connected to his truck. Once we fit all of them, I hopped in the truck and we drove off. At the Frontoyo, we dumped all of his olives into enormous crates. I almost fell into the crate a few times trying to empty the olives in ...

... gorgeous fettuccine with black truffles that I have ever tasted. (The truffles were so delicate, and nutty, and melt-in-your-mouth…) For our mains (“secondi piatti”), I had a mixed salad (I know, boring, but it’s hard to eat so much food in the middle of the day!) and Murray had sausage with cannelloni beans in a wonderful sauce. (Yes, he enjoyed some beer, too!) For a small dessert, we ordered a biscuit version of Siena ...

un autre jour, une autre destination! Aujourd'hui, nous somme parties pour Siene. Arrive a siene, nous avons traverse la ville pour y trouver un bureau d'information touristique. une fois la carte de la vile en main, nous somme aller dinner dans un resto, un peu a l'ecart des sites touristiques. Comme dans tout les restorant italien, il y ...

... pour nous, au village , il y a une cantine!! un endroit ou l'on peu deguster du vin toute l'annee. Dans une ambiance de cave a vin, il y a des machines distributrices d'echantillion de vin. Entre 0.60 et 6.00 euro l'echantillion! De cette facon, nous avons pus gouter a une vingtaines de bouteilles de la region.
Il y avait meme une degustation d'huile d'olive et emilie n'a pu s'empecher d'en achter une petite bouteille!

... that growing up in such a small town, with nothing really around you (not that that's bad, I loved growing up in my little corner of the United States), this kind of stuff just seemed like some sort of fantasy world. Like it didn't really exist. But, exist it does... and here we are. After the impressive bottling room we went down into the wine cellar, where huge oak barrels filled with wine were lined up and left to work ...

... mumbled something noncommittal in response but secretly liked his comment very much and it rejuvenated me to tackle the rest of the stairs. Finally we came out onto a small balcony that followed along the bottom of the inside of the dome about 70 feet above the church floor. Here the actual size of the paintings could be seen and the figures were about twice the size of a man. The anguish on the faces of the damned could be seen in their eyes as they were prodded ...

... and we also got to see Michelangelo's Pieta, and the Papal Altar, which stands over the crupt where St. Peter is reputedly buried. There was also a mass going on in part of the basilica, which was really cool to see. We then headed downstairs to where the Tombs of the Popes are located. Some of the graves were very plain, and others where lavished with statues and paintings. It was interesting seeing the difference. Downstairs we also got a better view ...

... that were later used by both scientists and artists. And the list goes on. So now that you're bombarded by all of this information, provided you haven't skipped and gone ahead to Alli's portion of the blog, you can experience Florence as we did - by immersing ourselves in the Renaissance and then stepping back to digest. On two consecutive days, we hit museums and then headed up to the hills to get great views of the city below. For some reason, with elevation comes contemplation ...

... her classroom Latin name, for anonymity of some sort) and her mother. We found a few nice souvenirs. Calpurnia was looking for an "Italia" soccer shirt for her sister and found a good deal on one. We also found pretty silk scarves, sheer with ribbons of different colors running through them down to the tassels, and I bought several bookmarks, a Florence "Ciao Bella!" t-shirt, and a thimble for Grandma. (Two years ago, she got Rome ...