Toscana

So, Tuscany was amazing! We left Friday morning, got to our hotel and went to the thermal baths (Terme) - where we soaked and relaxed for 2 hours...The baths are basically just a giant swimming pool full of naturally heated water that comes right out of the ground! Apparently the water has healing properties - so needless to say, after 2 hours in it, we were feeling pretty fantastic...After the baths we went back to the hotel and relaxed until dinner at 8. Let me just say that I have never eaten that much food in my life ever before...We had this really good pasta (called Pici pasta - pronounced "peachey") - it's kind of like thick spaghetti - we had that with this vegetable casserole, then salad and bread, then this really good pork with potatoes and peas, then amaretto cake (tasted EXACTLY like "S" cookies Baba and I had with tea all the time at our tea parties...it made me miss Baba tons!!!!) for dessert...it was a whole lot of food and I ate all of it! and it was delicious and then we went to bed....! The next day we went to Montepulciano, did a wine tasting there with amazing - AMAZING - have I said amazing? olive oil - it had a .01 acidity level, it was delicious, so I bought a 750ml bottle...that I am not opening until I am home and miss Italy a whole lot...and we had this really good aged cheese and a non-aged cheese to compare the two..and also 2 different types of red wine. After the wine tasting we had a little while to just walk around Montepulciano, so we did that and then went for a 4 hour walk through the hillside (pictures below). The walk was really amazing, the grass was really tall and swaying in the wind and you can't see it in the pictures but it's actually allllll pieces of clay - which apparently means that it was once an ocean (so weird) - and we even found a shell to prove it! There were all of these giant houses on the hills that used to be for the landowners who share cropped their land out to local farmers. After a while though, the government outlawed share cropping and all of the farmers had to move out, and then the houses became basically for ridiculously rich people. Now they're used for tourists to come and stay there and learn how to cook or learn how the farming worked, etc. Very cool. After the long walk we got back to the bus and our tourguide's girlfriend had made us all these little apricot jam cookies and pignoli bread - kind of like corn bread but with pine nuts on top - it was so good!!!! We got back to the hotel and had dinner - delicious again! Potato soup, salad, chicken, etc....not quite as crazy as the first night - and then we went out to the local "Bar" of the area around our hotel. When I say "Bar" - I mean caffe...and there was supposed to be a "band" playing...Well, we got there and there was a man and woman - the man had a guitar and they had a computer with karaoke on it that they were singing from and it was fantastic. It was absolutely hilarious...our friend Anthony asked them to play "Gloria", so they put it on and he jumped up and went "YESSS!!!" and they asked him to come sing with them so he obviously did...and that was absolutely amazing..we have video...then they asked him to come up again and he sang "Michelle" by the Beatles...so then...Celine Dion "My Heart Will Go On" comes on - and I started singing really loud and then they asked me to come up, so I did and I dragged Laura and Amanda with me...and Heather really got a kick out of that...as I'm sure everyone else did considering I was singing really loudly and we all know I don't have that beautiful of a voice hahaha DEFINITELY not when it comes to a Celine Dion song...so anyways, that was fun - we got back to the hotel, packed up and went to sleep. The next morning we headed off to Siena where we saw a lot of interesting churches - Saint Dominic - where Saint Catherine's head and right thumb are (you can see her head and thumb there, they have wax over them to preserve them but they're really there...so weird...and gross) and we saw a reallllly awesome Ferrari with a "famous Australian actor" in the driver's seat. When someone asked who he was, that's what he said haha...We also went and saw an art exhibit called Le Passione e L'arte with tons of different artists' work such as, Cezane annnnd I forget...I have a brochure - it was very cool though. After that we headed back to Roma. It was a really amazing trip, and it was so nice to be able to go with a group and have things planned for us so that we were sure to enjoy ever minute of it!!!! :) Now for some pictures...Hope you enjoyed reading all about my weekend in Toscana...
Tuscany..
Lone tree....they were used for aesthetics as well as markers for land boundaries by the share croppers
Lots of heads! Michelangelo is up there...(Siena)
She-wolf and Romulus and Remus in Siena
Tuscany...
Me on a hay stack during our 4 hour walk - doesn't it look like a fake background?!!?!
Heather and I...frolicking toward each other in the fields that resemble the shire...
Me and Kalli at Montepulciano's main hot spot
Me, Laura, Amanda, and Katie singing along to "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion with the lovely couple who were our musical entertainment for the evening...
Wine tasting in Montepulciano...!!