Chianti & Gardens

You would think it was just any ordinary Wednesday in Florence, Italy. But you clearly thought wrong. Today for class (Business Class) we took a trip to Chianti Classico for a wine tasting. Drinking wine at 10 am is actually a very nice thing. It really makes you relax for the rest of the day. We arrived at Chianti about 35 minutes outside of Florence around 10am. 

We walked into a semi large room, it was actually very small but for Italian style it was a semi large room. We sat down at a long table for all 13 of us on the trip. Each table setting had two wine glasses that we had for our two different wines we were tasting. The first wine we tried was a Chianti Classico 2008 I believe and the second was a Chianti Riserva 2005... both were very tasty!

It also included a small notebook and some reading information on the company itself. After the wine tasting, which was delicious by the way, we took a tour of the place. Which in fact is Machiavelli's  house where he wrote "The Prince" so a very famous setting. The house is from the 1600's which is an incredible place to walk through and see. We got to see the entire house, including the cellar where the wine originated from, there are lots of barrels that hold the wine. The basement was definitely the coolest part of the entire trip. There was stones in the cement everywhere and there was a tiny path that led you across the street. 

Side note: Machiavelli was exiled from Florence due to the fact that he had a lot of power, this was done by the Medici family. So everything in his house was a way to remind him of Florence, even though you can see Florence from his balcony. So inside his house he had to have a pathway to get to the other side of the street without running into someone that he was not supposed to be running into. End of site note.

Outside of the villa there are vineyards where the wine that we had tasted literally came right off the vine. That pretty much does not get any cooler or realistic if you ask me. 

Olive trees and grape vines like to play. They say they like to be farmed together and cultivated with the same soil. So here is a beautiful olive tree settling itself right next to the grape vines.

After you reach the other side of the street there is a small tavern that is now used as a restaurant. We had a reservation at this place for all of us with our meals picked out for us. The starter was a plate of salami's and hams with little toast things with smears. I have to say, this was a huge disappointment. First off, I do not like ham or salami and secondly, I tried a toast with liver... I nearly died. Good thing I rubbed off most of the liver before I ate it anyways. Never again will I eat something without asking what is first. Lesson learned. Check!

Of course no meal is forgotten without a large bottle of wine. This is a Machiavelli wine that is created in the vineyard right outside the restaurant. It is a Chianti from 2007. With a glass of water next to it, no gas.

The meal was the best part of this entire trip, well besides the wine. It was a delicious pasta with pieces of ham (so forget the ham part) and creamy sweet risotto type rice. I managed to find my way to an empty plate and a full belly. But it was not over yet...

I will never drink dessert wine ever again, first and last time. Another note to self: don't drink dessert wine unless you are going to take as a shot so you do not have to taste what it actually tastes like, because its awful.

And onto our last and final course of the meal. I could really get used to this luxury treatment of a 3 course meal and not having to pay a single euro for it... ok thanks Dad for my meal since technically it has already been paid for through expenses. :) This was a dessert that we had, nobody really knew what it was. It looks like a tiramisu but it was really sweet and had candied oranges in the bottom. I am not sure that anyone was a huge fan but we managed to snack on it for a little sweet treat.

So starting completely with a new subject, I got home from the field trip and had already missed my afternoon class so I thought, it is way too pretty of a day to be sitting inside right now. So I asked my friend Alyssa if she wanted to go for a walk. We decided that we should go to the Boboli Gardens which is a part of Palazzo Pitti. So here is when you first walk into the garden. I had no idea what to expect seeing as I had never been here before, which is a hard statement to say because everyones been to the Boboli Gardens except for me! Oh well, I can check this off the Florence to do list. I do not have much time left so hopefully I can squeeze as much in as possible.

Looking back from the gardens onto Palazzo Pitti is quite a site. What a beautiful building, especially on a sunny day like this with all of the tourists running around. Which could be taken as a good thing or a bad thing. 

While we were walking and a woman was feeding some ducks, we saw fish sneaking up from the water to snatch the bread crumbs. So I decided to give them a photo shoot!

Oh and maybe I would take some of the ducks because they were pretty too :) 

There is not much to say about the gardens. We did not make it through all of the parts because it is literally the largest garden I have ever seen in my entire life. It was hot, and we were tired from our wine tasting day! Tomorrow the weather looks to be in the 70's so I will be at the park reading and sunbathing incase any of you weren't already completely jealous and envious of my life! Be home in 5.5 weeks! AND DON'T FORGET TO WISH ME A HAPPY HALF BIRTHDAY!! 

Gyros, the Beach & Spring Break

Spring Break 2011. What more is there to say! What a nice chance to take a 7 day vacation and cruise to Greece. It all started on Friday, March 18 when Hannah, Emily and myself woke up and ran to the train station by 8:15am. By run, I mean walked very slowly due to our over sized suitcases. But really I should only speak for myself. I packed enough food and clothing for about a months worth of time. Which should be no surprise to anyone who is reading this. We made it to the train station to meet around 8:40 to meet the group in the destination they had told us to be. We were unaware of who was our group leaders at first, but finally figured out where we needed to be. Our bus left around 9:15 and we headed to Ancona, Italy where the port is located. The trip was about 4 hours with one rest stop along the way. Poor Emily got sick within the first 30 minutes. As soon as we made it to the port we were all super anxious to get onto the 'cruise ship.' More like a ferry. When we got on, we did not have a cabin to sleep in so they had told us that we were to sit in these horrible airplane chairs that barely even reclined. Everyone was in the same room with one shared bathroom. I almost had a heart attack. So my first thought was that, WE HAVE TO UPGRADE I'LL PAY ANYTHING. Of course we upgraded, who in their right mind would ever sleep in something like that, so for 22 euros we got to sleep in a bed! The cabins were about as small as a closet that could hold 3 pairs of pants for me. There were 4 beds, 2 that came off the wall to create bunk beds. We were all thoroughly exhausted so we got a beer and went straight into our rooms. I got really sea sick as the night went on and ended up spending most of the night tossing and turning. Thankfully for the travel gum that I had, it helped me sleep a little. The cruise was 14 hours long until we got to Igoumenita, Greece. We then got off of our ferry and walked about a mile IN THE RAIN (no umbrella of course) to the next ferry. I swear it was the worst and most painful period of my life. I also of course lost a stone in my ring that I had gotten in Florence which did not make things any better for me. 

We took the ferry for about an hour and a half to Corfu, Greece. We then departed and got on a bus to the Pink Palace. 

There were beautiful views along the way that we had looking down at the ocean where our hostel was located.

When we finally arrived and got ourselves into our rooms, this was the view that we saw from our balcony. It could not get any more perfect than this as we thought.. 

The first night, we went to dinner which started at 8:30pm. Crazy to think that I actually had dinner at that hour, unlike my usual 6pm. It was a delicious 3 course meal, minus the dessert. We had soup, a Greek salad and I forget what the main course was. It was delicious though whatever it was! We danced the night away after dinner and went to bed to wake up and go to the beach the next day!

The next morning we got up pretty early and went had breakfast which included eggs and bread, better than the typical Italian breakfast which includes a croissant and coffee. How dull. Haha. And we spent the day at the beach in between the rain and the sun, we managed to make it a nice day. 

The hostel ended up being a completely different experience than we had thought. People were drinking heavily, dancing hard, and going crazy. Not the place I necessarily needed to be, but we did have a great time. If you look on my facebook, I have been tagged in a picture in a pink toga. The second night of our trip we had a toga party and everyone had to wear a pink toga and go to dinner and then dance afterwards. It was a great night.

We spent two lovely days in Corfu to then travel to Athens over night via coach bus. We departed Corfu at 10pm Greece time to travel 7 hours to Athens. First we had to take a ferry for 1.5 hours and then the 7 hour bus ride through the night. Emily drugged me with some Dramamine and I was out cold. I do not even remember getting up and using the rest room at the rest stop the first time that we stopped! At least I slept through the night, which was very important!

We got to the hotel, which was in the worst part of Athens EVER. Hotel Lido (DO NOT GO THERE). We saw people getting arrested and gangs I suppose that were around. It was not pleasant. But other than that, we got there and we got settled and then immediately left for our walking tour around Athens and up to the acropolis 

We fell upon some government buildings such as the one below. This is the Athens Parliament and there are guards that stand outside of the building that watch over an unknown solider. This is a common trend that started in the United States and now is popular among a lot of other places. That is to house an unknown solider and have guards watch over. The guards stood in the most ridiculous outfits which included shoes with huge pom poms on the top of the toe area. 

We then went on and visited the old Olympic Stadium that was built in the 1800's. We did not pay to walk inside so this is the best view that I could get!

And still on our walking tour we made it to Zeus's house, or whatever they called it way back then. There used to be over 200 columns just like this and now I believe there are 16 still standing. Can you believe that there were that many columns in this area. I cannot believe it. It is a beautiful site. More and more of these columns are falling as the weather continues to sweep through the area.

Hadrian's Triumphal Arch which is just like any of the other triumphal arches, and has the exact same meaning. When he came into office he put up this archway to distinguish the roadways. 

This is an amphitheater on the top of the acropolis. Looking downwards of course.

Look at this cute little stray doggie laying on the rocks. SO MANY DOGGIES. 

Still on our walking tour, looking over the entire city of Athens. 

The Parthenon, of course there is a picture of this. What an incredible sight. It is being of course fixed up, just like everything else in these ancient cities. It begins to get annoying when there is a crane in literally every single picture that could be so beautiful without it. 

Emily and myself in front of the Parthenon. Still on our walking tour, before the rest of the group left without us!

The entire city of Athens, it just feels like it keeps going and going and it ever ends. The group then decided to  meet at 1:30. Well, when we showed up at 1:25 nobody was in sight. So we ended up finding three other guys who had also lost the group and we decided to look for a gyro stand. We couldn't find one on the street so we stopped and asked this random guy and he made us follow him all around these small streets to find this  great restaurant. The gyros were 2 euros each with free water. How much better does that get?! Wait, I can top that.. the meat wasn't even lamb- thank goodness. I was not about to eat a baby lamb. I could not wrap my head around that one!

For a day trip we decided to go to Aegina. This is the ferry that took us over. It took about an hour to get there and boy was it worth it. Aegina is an island that we were told was typical for blue and white houses, although we did not see anything. The island is actually HUGE. We should have rented scooters but we were too afraid that we would hurt ourselves. 

Walking off of the boat, surrounded by water and other smaller personal boats made me feel like I was in Maryland, except for that I was not. 

The island was lined with buildings similar to these that were all commercial and then moving inwards in the island were all these gorgeous little condos and apartments and smaller houses with gardens.  

My first purchase on the island was at "THINK PINK." Very appropriate. I bought a very pretty coral colored tshirt that scrunches on the sleeves. I am sure you will see it in some photographs very soon since the weather is finally getting warm.

I made a few other purchases that I can not talk about all of them (gifts).

This is an example of some of the houses on the way into the main part of the island.  

This is a Greek Orthodox Church I think, everything was in Greek so I could not exactly read what it said.

I could not ask for a more beautiful setting. This is where we had lunch and the view that I had to the ocean literally right in front of us. 

Another gorgeous view of the furniture and the view. It was just a great place to sit back, drink a beer and eat a great gyro. 

And BAM, here is the most delicious gyro plate ever. Included is a lot of chicken, french fries and pita! YUMMM. 

Me with my gyro plate! Below are a few more scenic pictures that I thought really described the island Aegina. It was a great getaway and 100% worth it.

Emily and my feet in the ocean! It was cold but completely worth doing. The sand felt amazing on my feet and it made me feel just at home.

Baklava, the traditional dessert for Greeks. It was very sweet and filled me up, I could not finish this tiny bit of food because it was so filling. Delicious.

A picture of the city looking from the boat area as we were leaving to go back to Athens.

AND I FOUND STARBUCKS IN ATHENS. This was the best way to end my trip. I went shopping after we got off the ferry. I bought a great Greek like shirt that is embroidered and I got Greek made sandals. I also made the best purchase of my life which was STARBUCKS. I was so excited to finally have my chai latte with skim milk of course. 

And off we went for our 21 hour cruise back to Ancona and then back to Florence. It was a long long long trip but completely worth it. More pictures are on facebook so check there.