The Principessa in her castle

We are now in Castellina en Chianti, at the Palazzo Squarcialupi Hotel.  But before I show you the place, let me tell you about the trip over. 

We took it very easy, driving on small county roads and stopping wherever it looked like there would be good pictures.  In this way, we found ourselves in Radda for lunch, and wound our way into Castellina around 3pm.

                                               A viewpoint between Greve and Radda

                                                    First medieval walled village sighting

                                                                         Radda en Chianti

                                                                  View from Radda

                                                     Town walls from the 11th century

Castellini has a Centro Storico closed to drivers for most of the day...  only opened to permitted cars two hours in the morning  and two hours in the afternoon.  This is because the streets are impossibly narrow, with no sidewalks.  The Medievals didn't have clarvoyant city planners, apparently.  Of course I booked a place right smack in the middle of the old part.  So we ended up getting to negotiate the car through a cobbled, narrow lane jammed with tourists in order to drop off the luggage.  This was an interesting exercise in patience and good humor.

The Palazzo Squarcialupi is magical, I think.  It is a huge old Palace, now turned into beautiful rooms and huge, palatial living room spaces.  There is a pool in the back, and an amazing spa in the caverns beneath the hotel.  Eileen, who checked us in, saw that I had booked a double-bedded room (standard rate)(because there was no twin option when I booked) and upgraded us immediately to a twin room.  While we waited for it to be ready, she brought us beer to drink on a patio with the most amazing views towards green rolling hills, old villas, vineyards, etc.  When we got to the room, it turned out to be like a royal apartment!!  It is huge and beautiful, and we just stood there with our mouths hanging open!  Here are some pictures, but they don't really capture the beauty of the place:

Room entrance

Living room portion

                                                               The regal twin beds

Amazing, huh??  My mother would say, "I wonder what the poor people are doing??"

Anyway, not surprisingly we decided to get some simple food from the Deli and eat in last night... which is what we did. 

As I write this, it's early morning here, the next day.  There are two Wi-Fi spots in the hotel:  a huge living room upstairs, and the bar area on the bottom floor.  I am in the latter, sitting facing the view of green hills.  The "e's" are not plentiful here, rather like in Venice.  Last night we had just a few minutes before being kicked off (hence you find me here in the deserted bar area at 6am). It's possible the posts will taper off for a few days.  I just didn't want you to think that I had suffered a premature death from gluttony and overeating.

The Angel of Espresso just brought me a small cup of it...  how totally wonderful!!! 

Today we will be visiting small villages around here and I will report back as I can.

Food Mecca Emporium Extrordinaire

Gallo Nero in Greve en Chianti

I mentioned this place last night, and indeed I was lucky enough to eat there two nights in a row.  They are just fabulous!  It's a family-run place presided over by Nanna in the kitchen.  She apparently does all the cooking and believe me, it's amazing.  The sweet and always smiling grandchildren serve.  Tonight we had wild boar tagliatelle, gnocchi verde (spinach and lemon potato/flour dumplings in a creamy sauce, fillet of beef cooked over a wood fire with spinach and grapes, plus a rich brown sauce over all, and panna cotta with caramel (Dawn) or chocolate (Diane).  And the ever-popular house wine which comes in bottles.  I tried to remember to take pictures before diving in, but as you will see I was a bit blinded by the food excellence.

Gnocchi verde


Tagliatelle with wild boar

Beef filet with spinach and grapes

Panna Cotta with caramel

Panna Cota with chocolate

Sweet dreams!

Winery Heaven

We had a good breakfast at the hotel, included in the room rate, and bit later headed out for our reserved winery tour.

The Villa Vignamaggio is a little south of Greve, and is at least as large in acreage as the town.  It dates back to the 14th century.  In fact, they allege that Mona Lisa was born there in 1459, (a fact that is disputed by some).  The beautiful grounds were used for the film, "Much Ado About Nothing".

We had a tour of the Caves, a beautiful lunch with paired wines and as much time in the gardens as we cared to take.

Great tour, and I would highly recommend the wines, although they can't begin to approach the beauty of their location!

Greve in Chianti

Yesterday we dragged all the luggage to the area near the train station in Florence, and I spent some time walking around all the bus stops there looking for the airport bus (because I planned to pick the rental car up there, figuring it would be easier driving than the city center).  Finally, I asked the King of the Carbinierri (I wish you could have seen him:  early 60's, posture like a nobleman and decorated in every open space on his uniform with medals and ribbons; he was very kind and pointed me in the direction of the bus station which I hadn't even known existed until that moment).  We lugged everything there and had only to wait a few minutes for the bus.

                                                               Bus station waiting

I'd read a lot of nightmare scenarios about the car company I'd elected to use, and so I was fully expecting a whole slew of add-on charges.  But nothing of the sort occurred and everyone was really wonderful.  We were on our way out of the airport in our little Fiat within 1/2 hour of getting to the airport.  AND it had a full tank of gas (sometimes they don't).  

                                                                                  The Fiat

After a little while on the AutoStrada, we got off and started heading towards Chianti on some of the secondary roads.  And we soon found a good lunch place:

There's a refrigerator in this picture

See the big hunks of meat??

Another display with fake?? pasta

Lots of bamboo provided a sheltered connection with Nature, a proper antidote for the city

                                           Creme Brulee brought flaming to the table

                                                Panna Cota, my new favorite dessert

No, of course we didn't just have dessert for lunch!!  The very idea!  But it's all I thought to photograph.

We reached our location for the next two nights, Greve in Chianti,  and found our hotel with ease.  Both of us were charmed by the family who runs it, and it's right on the main town square... although our room faces the pool and gardens.

Greve in Chianti

We browsed through the shops in the square (actually a triangle) and then had dinner last night at a really wonderful restaurant.  I didn't have my camera then so I can't share any food pictures.  But we plan to return tonight for dinner, in order to get pictures.  And of course I am doing this just for you!  Hmm, hmmm.

Cooking class

Today's big event was the cooking class.  We thought that it would be just us, but a couple from New Jersey and their two daughters also joined in.  We made:  pasta with eggplant and zucchini blossoms, pan fried sea bream and fruit tart for dessert.  It was a tremendous amount of fun, and I learned a lot...  not only about how to improve my pasta-making skills, but also how to fillet a fish plus a great tip to help keep tart pastry from falling apart prior to baking.  Here are a few pics:
                                                        Beginning to roll out the pasta:

It's getting bigger

                                                             The completed sheet of pasta

                                                             Cutting the pasta

De-boning the sea bream

Plating the fish

Apparently half of the class was not ready to say "cheese"

"Cheese"

Sea Bream completo

We rode home from class on the double-decker tourist bus and so could rest assured that David is still watching over the city

The Duomo from Piazza Michelangelo

Tomorrow (Tues. 7/5) we leave Florence and start travelling through the small Medieval villages of Tuscany.  Good night until then.

A Pitti Party

We went to the Pitti Palace today and it was very good.  We saw some really excellent art from 15th and 16th centuries once again, but this time I found it much more interesting (probably because it was a bit more secular).We also quickly toured the Royal Apartments...  lavish and self-indulgent conspicuous wealth, but the art continued to be a joy to see.  We also saw the Modern Art Gallery, which doesn't mean Pollock or DeKooning, but Italian artists from the 17th century through to the Impressionists.  So, coming just recently from the Biennale, this "modern art" seemed very quaint indeed.  But it still was very interesting to see, and the ability to render light continued to be a wonder through the entire art collection.

This sculpture is at the front of the museum, and it's interesting because there is really nothing in the museum which approaches this level of "contemporary artness"

The Pitti Palace

View out to the Boboli Gardens from museum

As it turned out, our tickets did not allow us entry to the Boboli Garden or the Costume Gallery, but we found an Enoteca directly across from the museum which I thought had been recommended on Tripadvisor... so we went there for lunch.

                                 View toward the Pitti Palace from Pitti Gola E Cantina

Dawn's wine:  delicate, fruity, mostly dry;  selected by staff so don't know the type or brand, etc.

          Dawn's pick for food:  a lasagna with slow-cooked beef...  delicious and a bargain at 8e

The wine chosen for me:  a Brunello, lush and delicious from Montelcino; and check out the wine carafe:  its purpose is to let the wine breathe before pouring

Absolutely, flipping amazing hand-made raviolis:  filled with spinach and ricotta; served with shaved truffles and pecorino cheese; also 8e

We were a bit puzzled with the wine and food pairings, as they both seemed to violate the usual rule of delicate wine with delicate food, etc., but we agreed that both pairings worked, and we were generally in gastronomic heaven

If possible, I would like to return to this Pitti enoteca  before we leave Florence.  Yup, it was THAT good!