Norjie has hired a car for the weekend so we’re mobile again and went off for a day in the Chianti once again (for me). It was beautiful, it is beautiful and I guess every time I go back it will indeed be beautiful. Having said that, todays experience was totally different to the day spent with H,A & R. To start with Norjie is not really into wines so it wasn’t a day of being off the beaten track searching out wineries and good wines. Instead it was a day of exploring the little towns of the Chianti area.
First, I have to once again pay homage to my dear friend of the GPS. I love her for many reasons, again confirming that there definitely is a worse Italian accent than mine but secondly she unfailingly gets me there!! For this I love her and am in Hammy and Ariane’s debt. I remember being reluctant to take her, now they will have to prise her off me in Sicily.
We set off and went first to Castellina in Chianti. A lovely Chianti town but very busy and very much geared to the tourist trade…i.e. full of restaurants, enotecas and a bustling market. We walked through a wonderful passageway under the old cellars which was fabulous. A highlight for me was lighting upon a dress I liked in the market…and that fitted!! I bought 2 for 20 Eu each and they will certainly help me through the long hot summer.
From there we went to (back to for me) the lovely town of Volpaia. Last time we were there Hammy and I tasted wines while Rose and Ariane walked through the town. There was also the added excitement of me needing to get to a loo, so I missed the town. This time no such drama. First we went to lunch in order to secure a table. We went to the restaurant on the other side of the piazza to where we sat last time at that little bar. We sat out on the terrace under the vines with a splendid view and a yummy light lunch and, of course, a glass (or two ) of wine. Gorgeous. We then wandered through the town and what a lovely town it is…ancient and quiet, away from the hoards and totally beautiful. The Harley Club arrived to shatter the tranquility but they had soon parked their bikes and settled down to enjoy their lunch at the bar opposite.
From there we went to Panzano. Another lovely quiet, ancient little town to wander through. The main trauma here was the exceedingly steep streets. No problem on the feet but I had to park the little gutless Fiat Panda on a very steep hill. I had had awful trouble in the car park in Castellina because it wouldn’t get up the vertical slope out of the car park…I had to reverse back and make the 3 cars behind me reverse so I could get a run up and even then only just got the little gutless wonder out of there. Not a car to be buying any time soon…all I could think was thank god for my solid training in the hand break start and the manual transmission all those years ago!!! Anyway the long and the short of this exhaustive tale is that we got up the hill in Panzano with (according to me) considerable skill and tenacity.
Last stop was Greve. The heart of the Chianti, or so they say. A lovely town. We had read about this thing there where you put money on a card and slot it into these wine tasting machines for a tasting. I wanted to do it because it sounded like a lot of fun. So we put 10 Euros onto this card which we shared and had our tastes. It failed a little because I was driving and couldn’t taste as much as I would have and could have, and Nora is definitely not into wine and she curled up her toes and refused to have more. So…there were no refunds. But fortunately we’d been chatting to some Aussies in this enoteca and despite the fact that he was a Collingwood supporter my ‘waste not want not’ instinct overcame my ‘hate every Collingwood supporter’ instinct and I gave the remaining tastes to him.
Then we returned to Lucca and to top a good day I found a car park immediately….dinner at home tonight and tomorrow a lesser excursion into the Garfagna.
Ciao all XXXX