Today somehow became a really good food day, which was unexpected.
I LOVE this hotel. It's right in the heart of historical Florence, and you have breakfast out on a nice little terrace overlooking the... actually I'm not sure which piazza, but one nonetheless. My ensuite bathroom is bigger than some of the rooms I've stayed in. And a nice, properly temperatured shower... ahh, the small things...
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| View of Tuscany, from Castle Tower |
Anyway, the tour starts at about 10am, where they take you on a 40 minute drive up to a little town south-west of Florence, to start the ride, at Castello di Poppiano. It's a really old castle in which still lives a Count and Countess, and it's also a winery and olive oil producer. So we started with a tour of the winery, some wine and olive oil tasting, before we started riding. The olive oil was SO good, as was the wine. I've said before, I'm not a big red wine drinker, but I've yet to have a bad red, either in France or Italy. They are SO much more palatable.
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| Aging of the Fortified Wines I can't even begin to say how good this room smelled. These casks have been here for over 100 years (with different wines in them) and never get moved. |
The ride was stunning, and a little strenuous at times. The views were well worth it though, as was the lunch! We stopped at... well I have no idea where, but it was a restaurant. We started with salads, followed by a few pasta options - I had spaghetti ragu, and OMG. It was the best pasta I've had in Italy, by far!!! It was absolutely amazing. Then it was gelato for dessert, and of course, we had red wine with our meal.
So after that huge and delicious lunch, were were expected to get back on our bikes and ride for another hour or so, and the hardest part of the ride too - a lot of uphill. There was one really bad hill, but we had the option to sit in the van which followed us the whole way, for that. Needless to say, I took that option. Over half the people who opted to try the hill also had to be picked up along the way.
I'd definitely recommend doing a cycle tour if you come to Florence - it really is a great experience and, as I said, one of the highlights of my entire trip. The one I went with was Tuscany Bike Tours. There were ten of us or so, and all around the same age group. We had an absolute blast. The tour operators are Irish, and really made it a great, fun and sometimes hilarious day.
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| View of the Castle |
We were dropped back in Florence at about 5pm. Not that I was hungry after that huge lunch, but I went to dinner a few doors down from my hotel in the Piazza Santa Maria Novella at a pizza place. Now, anyone who knows me, knows I'm not the biggest pizza fan in the world, but you really can't compare the crap we get home with a real, Italian pizza. It was SO good, and huge. My only disappointment was that Italians don't seem to put pineapple on their pizzas, so I had to have my magheriti sans pineapple. Boo hoo.
More good (white) wine, followed by an espresso and a yummy dessert, which consisted of puff pastry, copious amounts of cream, melted chocolate and icing sugar. I feel thorougly sick. But in a good way. For the moment.
I really have no idea how Italians remain so thin. I can not believe how they eat!
A few things I've noticed - Italians don't in fact eat spaghetti with a spoon. They also don't dip bread in olive oil (or have butter), and Tuscans don't put salt in their bread, which makes it a little bland, but it has something to do with a salt tax years ago, and therefore cutting it out of their food because they were too tight to pay. As I already knew, they don't have milky coffee after lunchtime, and as I found out tonight, they don't put pineapple on pizzas. And they eat like there is no tomorrow.
They're a strange mob.
I totally understand the whole siesta thing now though. After eating such huge lunches, it's definitely needed.
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