Day 9 - Friday, October 7 - Villa Petiolo and Florence

 It was an early morning with breakfast at 7:00 and leaving for Villa Petriolo at 7:30. Traffic was pretty heavy and it took us a little over 1 1/2 hours to get there.

Villa Petriolo is a 15th century villa which is being completely reconstructed to a very luxury small hotel in the Tuscan countryside. There is quite a long single-lane road to get there which makes it interesting when there is oncoming traffic, although there isn't much. The new owners started reconstruction in 2018 and just opened a year and a half ago. Since this is an historic site, all of the buildings need to be restored under government controls for such things so it is surprising they've made progress so quickly. 

This is a "regenerative" agri-tourismo. They are trying to manage this as it was 600 years ago, with heirloom pigs, chickens, goats, sheep and crops like wheat, olives, grapes of the time. All of the food at the Michelin-star restaurant uses onsite and local produce. The animals graze in the fields to fertilize them and there is no monoculture. They use solar collectors to heat the infinity pool (this is high end) and PV cells provide the electricity for the pool. This weekend the entire facility was reserved for a wedding - the guests coming in looked like a young fashionable jet-set.

We said hello to the goats, sheep and donkeys before having a cappuccino sitting outside. Anna dipped her toes in the infinity pool.

The main reason for our being there was the cooking lesson. We made pizza and tagliatelle pasta. Fun but quite a sticky process making the dough with one's fingers, mixing flour, yeast and water for the pizza dough and just whole eggs and flour for the pasta. It was quite a process to use the pasta machine to process the dough. The chefs took care of the baking.

We went to a semi-outside area for lunch, enjoying chianti wine, pecorino cheeses and prosciutto, bacon and salami from their pigs.   This was followed by our pasta with their special sauce of ground pork, mushrooms and pistachios - this was delicious. The our pizza which was topped with pecorino cheese - most cheese in this area seems to be from the sheep. Finally, vanilla ice cream made with honey.

The trip back was much quicker, just over an hour. Ginny had Francesco stop at an overlook which has a spectacular view of Florence. There are amazing villas on the hillside on the way up and we could see much of the old Florence city wall.

My Fitbit recorded over 6000 extra steps from the bus ride - must be the bumpy ride combined with moving forward!

After a bit of resting at the hotel, we checked out the location of the train station and walked to a bridge west of the Ponte Vecchio so we could see it at sunset. Then pizza at a local restaurant.

Carmen and Anna at Ponte Vecchio

Anna making pizza

Florence from overlook


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 10 - Saturday, October 8 - Pitti Palace & Boboli Gardens

Image
 Before breakfast this morning I went out for a walk - what a difference! Only a few tourists and street cleaners out compared with last evening when the streets were so crowded it was difficult to get through. The Ponte Vecchio only had a few people on it. The mist rising behind the Ponte Vecchio as the sun came up was very pretty. After breakfast, Lucca picked us up for the tour of the Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens. The Pitti Palace has quite an interesting history. It was started in the mid-1400s by Luca Pitta, a wealthy banker, who told the architects to spare no expense. Unfortunately, it was so expensive that he went bankrupt and only the first floor was completed. In the mid-1500s, it was purchased cheaply by Eleanora di Toledo, the wife of Cosimo Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany and a second floor was added. In the early 1800s, Napoleon's sister Elizabeth married the Duke of Tuscany and a third floor was added. Napoleon used it as his official residence. The palace w
Read more

Day 3 - Saturday, October 1 - Assisi, Spoleto and Norcia

Image
Lunch at the Assisi piazza  Saturday was a long day, starting at 8:30 with a bus ride to the city of Assisi, most famous for the St. Francis Cathedral which was built shortly after his death in 1226. It is filled with some of the most beautiful frescoes of the 13th century. At 10:30 we were met by Jerry, a Franciscan serving as a tour guide. He is from Montana (!) and served previously in Mexico, Vietnam and Australia. Although he had only been there 4 months, he had a good knowledge of the history and artwork. We visited the tomb of St. Francis which is in a chamber directly underneath the altar - it is a somber place with many worshippers.  The cathedral has huge lower and upper sanctuaries, with every surface covered with frescoes depicting various religious themes. One of the major characteristics is Giotto's style of portraying lifelike facial images.  Leaving the cathedral, we walked up (lots of up!) to the main piazza in front of the ancient Roman temple going back to 241BC.
Read more