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!!