We had a few days to catch our breath and do laundry and clean before our friends Laura and Jacob arrived. We were looking for an excuse to go back to Tuscany to get more wine before we move at the end of the summer, so we decided to use Laura and Jacob as our excuse.
Laura and Jacob spent a few days in Rome first, so we arranged to pick them up at Termini, the central train station. This proved both easier and harder than expected. Laura's phone sort of worked, when she could find wi-fi, which it turns out, she had a hard time finding. Luckily I found parking and Dan wandered off to find them. It was only pouring rain so, everyone got a little damp.
We are staying in the small Tuscan town (they're almost all small towns) of Pienza. As it turned out, our hotel was in the little old town bit and I ended up driving the wrong way down some alleys and ultimately down a pedestrian only area. We made it out of the pedestrian only area just in time for the carabinieri to pull me over and tell me that I'm not allowed to to drive in the pedestrian only area. I made a big show of being sorry and not speaking Italian and being a dumb American. This either appeased them or they decided they didn't want to deal with the ensuing paperwork, so let us go on our way. We found parking and our hotel. We checked in, dropped off our bags and headed over to Montalcino and Il Palazzone for some wine. We have been to this winery a few times - here, and here.
They had just emptied their big fermentation tanks so we got to peek inside to see the lovely wine color the wood has become.
I shoved my camera in and hoped for the best, I didn't feel up to actually climbing into the tank, plus I don't think Esther would have liked that. Esther was our guide for the evening.
Wooo! Wine tasting!
And then we purchased a lot of wine. We had to shore up our wine shipment numbers.
It rained quite a bit, but we still were able to have some lovely views.
A lovely end to a somewhat silly and confusing day.
This concludes our adventures for today.
