Friday May 19, 2006

10:48 pm – Italy – Day 7 – On the road to wine tastings

 

Okay.  I lost all my notes about today and it is now two years later… and I have no entry for today’s events except one saying that it was “all about the wine.”  I’m going to try to reconstruct the day from memory and from the photos that were taken.

 

Beth and I started the day with a walk to Lucolena, the small town that is nearest the villa.  There really isn’t a lot there – the wonderful, small restaurant, Locanda Borgo Antico, where we had dinner on day 3, a hotel – and not much else.  But we did have a wonderful view of the villa on the way back.  Click the Complete Day 7 Photos in the box below for a pretty good idea of what it looked like. (Well, actually, you’ll first get a photo of our final empty wine bottle count, but scroll down for the photos of our walk.)

 

I just cannot reconstruct the different wineries that we visited with the exception of Fontodi, which had, I believe, the best wine we tasted while we were in Italy.  Fontodi is situated in a valley called Conca D'Oro (Golden Basin) near Panzano and has simply breathtaking views from the winery.  We had lunch at a restaurant in Panzano named Enoteca Baldi and I do remember being especially pleased with our walk along the narrow main street afterward going back to our vehicles.

 

On the way back from some of the other wineries, we again stopped in Panzano and visited L'Antica Macelleria Cecchini, the butcher shop of Dario Cecchini, who treated us somewhat brusquely as we pondered some of his delicacies.  It was at the end of a long day, I suppose, for both he and us, but he did become a bit friendlier when Beth spoke a few words to him in Italian.

 

My memory is that we soon crashed back at the villa, but do not remember who cooked dinner and what it was.  Sorry fellow traveler’s, but this is being written two years after the fact.  I do remember it being our last night in the villa, for tomorrow we are off to Venice.  Brian and Susan returned to Canada, but both Lesly and Gary as well as Charles and Elizbeth also journeyed on to Venice where we all met up again.  I have photo’s to prove it!

 

We really will miss this place.  The good news is:  we are again going to Tuscany in June of 2008 and staying at our beloved Villa Il Castellaccio once more.  Charles and Elizabeth will be there, but the rest of the crew will all be new.

 

Will I write about it then?  Perhaps not… I plan to just enjoy the ride, but there will be plenty of photos!  And plenty of wine!  But can we outdo the empty bottle photo above? 

 

We’ll see…

 

 

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