Tuscany, Italy

After a short train ride we arrived in Florence.  The owner of the hostel picked us up at the train station.  They spent time showing us a map and gave us a list of good places to eat.  We had a fabulous local meal of, what else?, pasta and wine.  We hit the sack early because we had a big day ahead of us exploring Tuscany wine country.

The one thing I thought was a must do when in Italy is go on a wine tour.  My niece didn't want to do a big tour bus tour so I scoured around and found a great gal on TripAdvisor.  Dolce Chianti Tours.  A one party tour for about the same as the big bus tours :-)

We went to three wineries and stopped in a beautiful little town called Greve for lunch.  For a change of pace I had chicken, Abbie had pasta, and we both had wine, of course! 

We learned a great deal about identifying the smells in wines and qualities to look for.  My favorite qualities were the black currant, eucalyptus, and leather.  For some strange (sad) reason I did not like the chocolate aroma...  We also had fun with the roosters found around as it is the logo for Chianti wines.