Activities: Tuscany, Florence
--Siena is in Tuscany between Rome and Florence. It’s a famous quaint, old Italian town that I stopped in because I had time to spend in Tuscany on the way to my winery tour. You park your car in the stadium parking lot or elsewhere, and walk up and up the stone street into the city’s open plaza. When you get there, you see tourists and shops. It is a quaint little town with narrow lanes and stone houses. The climb up reminded me too much of Mt Vesuvius. The overall feel of the streets reminded me faintly of Tzfat. Recommended for those who like quaint tourist traps.
Steep stone street
--winery
Tuscany is known for its vineyards, wineries and beautiful scenery. I found 2 Kosher wineries in the area that give tours and tastings.
www.terradiseta.it/eng/ and
www.cantinagiuliano.com Cantina Guiliano is further North and West, but seems to give tours throughout the day. Terra di seta is more conveniently located near Florence, but only books tours for 11am and 5pm. I chose to drive to Terra di Seta, with a stop along the way in Siena, for a 5 pm tour. That was the plan.
Although the winery is not that many miles from Siena, because it’s all country roads, the GPS said it would take almost half an hour. We got back to the parking lot only 25 min before 5, so we were already barely on time. When we entered the lot, we took a 'ticket' from the entry machine. Now we took the ticket to the payment machine to pay and the machine said it was unable to read it! I looked high and low for an official person to help me, but no office was occupied and no one was around. I finally asked another customer if he knew what to do and he showed me a button on the machine that connected to a live operator that actually spoke enough English to help me. He had the machine spit out a fresh ticket for me to use. I paid my 2 Euros and left the lot. It was about 5 to 5. I drove along a small highway, then turned off onto a smaller road. The GPS then had us turn off onto a gravel road and we kept going. We were driving through hills of grapevines with grapes hanging. There were occasional old farmhouses overlooking acres of greenery. It was beautiful. But I was beginning to wonder how far we needed to go on this small road when the GPS announced that we were here. Where? Maybe down that dirt road to the left over there. We followed that road for a bit, but it couldn't possibly be a way for a truck to reach a winery; it was barely wider than our car. So when I found a wider area, I turned the car around and went back to the place we'd turned off. It was now 5:30. We googled the winery and found a different address than I'd had. GPS said 20 minutes. We decided to go for it. We went back on the road we'd come, stopped to take a picture of the vineyards and grapes, and turned down a different secondary road than before.
When the GPS again said we were here, we were again no place that looked like anywhere. But wait! If we inch forward a bit there's a turnoff sharply to our right! There's a small sign next to another small sign! It says Terra di Seta! We're in the right place.
A locked gate blocked the road so I rang the bell next to the gate and apologized for missing my tour, but could I perhaps buy some wine? She let us in and ended up giving us an explanation/ mini tour. They make 5 different varieties of Chianti and Chianti-type wines made with their own grapes- mostly Sangiovese grapes. I bought a few bottles, some of which are not available in the USA. They’re not mevushal- at least the ones I bought. She seemed like a nice lady. On our way from the gate to the wine barn, we passed her husband sitting on a lounge chair near a BBQ. Grocery shopping must be a challenge.
Driving away, the GPS sent us back toward Siena and then on to Florence. The highway SR222 is known to be very scenic and we enjoyed it immensely. We saw some lakes that were a light green – bluegreen- not moldy- a color I’d never seen in a lake. No pictures unfortunately. It’s along a highway, so we couldn’t stop, we were using the phone/camera as a GPS, and, most importantly, the photographer was driving.
--Florence-I’ve heard that people love Florence, finding it beautiful, charming and wonderful. I didn’t. The buildings by and large had plaster covering their brick and stone construction as that was fashionable in the 1600’s. The building trims were also understated instead of something to appreciate. As far as things to do, I could have passed on the whole city. It has some major art museums with major art collections; it was a center or Renaissance painting and art in the 1400’s and 1500’s. Michelangelo and others worked here. But as I’m not into art, I’d seen enough in Rome to last me through my trip in Italy. A train from Rome to Venice can take less than 4 hours, a plane only 1 hour, so unless you have something else to do in the neighborhood, you can zip on by.
In Florence we met up for the day's tour, with another DDFer who was in Italy with her husband and teenage son and daughter. In the Uffizi gallery, our tour guide enthusiastically brought our attention to the great art and the study of specific paintings - artfully painted naked males (so the teenage girl could squirm), richly painted naked girls (so the teenage boy could find somewhere else to stand) and also religious paintings like
Annunciation by Leonardo DaVinci, who at least has Mary wearing clothes.
The guide also did a walking tour of Florence where, among other things, we saw the Florence shul which dates from the late 1800’s. It was built in the ‘Moorish’ style.
A wall and lamp from inside the shul.
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Topic: Italy- information, impressions – ckmk47’s Trip Report (Read 9578 times)