Can I just say that I hope in my next life I come back as an Italian? The people, the wine, the food, the countryside, the wine....did I mention the wine? Despite the fact that we all need to be swiftly deposited in a detox facility to recover from the sheer volume of wine and cheese that we consumed this week -- we had an amazing time.
Picture this. Wake up, 8am (including Hadley who magically decided to start sleeping 8pm to 8am this week)...9am, breakfast and strong Italian coffee...10am, us in the sun by the pool, Hadley under her umbrella...12pm, pasta lunch...melone con prosciutto, caprese salad made with fresh basil out of our garden...2pm, wine tasting, private cellar tour...4pm, afternoon nap...5pm, fire up the wood fired pizza oven in the back yard, fresh pizza and/or tuscan steaks and Brunello on the deck watching the sunset over the tuscan hills. Next day -- wake up, repeat.
We spent a week just so. We also managed short day trips to the cities of Siena and Pienza and finished the week with a night in Manarola, Cinque Terre -- swimming in the local swimming hole and eating mussels and then gelato in the hot sun before returning to Zurich.
I should also mention that the Italians loooove babies, Hadley was the star of the show at nearly every winery we visited. At one of our favorites, Vitanza Cellars, the winemaker (Rosalba) stopped in the middle of the tour to proclaim that she just couldn't finish her speech because she "could just eat that baby!" and proceeded to tote Hadley around for the remainder of the tour.
One evening two locals came to our place for a five course Italian cooking lesson. We made tuscan bean soup, goat chese and onion tart, caprese salad, hand made picci pasta with fresh pesto and tomato sauce, a bacon wrapped pork flank and followed it up with tiramisu. As you can imagine, it was incredible to make all of those dishes from scratch! Not sure I could repeat it, but some day I will try :)
Italy will forever remain one of our favorite countries in the world...we are already our return trip to Castello Romitorio for my 30th birthday in 2011!
Enjoy the photos, and until next time, Ciao!
2 comments:
Looks like an AMAZING time! And... I must say, I admire how much you are able to do with little Hadley! God, I feel like it is a major production for me just to get to the store and back, and you are toting your littl one around Italy! I think I need to take lessons from you. ;-)
looks like a great time, i'm so jealous! we are planning our tuscany trip right now and i can not wait to get there!
Post a Comment