Tuscany Country Interlude

Did you notice that the Friday blog post was missing? Yeah. That was a bit of a show. We are still having fun, but oh boy, we are not Italian speakers and sometimes things just become a mess. Add in the Italian version of Labor Day and things look like this:

So today we escaped (read as: planned ahead of time regardless of crowds) to Tuscany for a day trip. Sure, it was a canned tour group, but counter point:

It started very early in the morning by grabbing a taxi (aka F1 racecar driver) to La Piazza del Popolo and catching the tour bus up to the country side and a town called Montepulciano. It's a medieval town built up on a hill and looks exactly how you'd expect a Tuscany country village would look. As do the views. Seriously, they do not overestimate the beauty of this region.

From there we took a quick stop at an old abbey in hopes of hearing some Gregorian Chants.

We missed that. So off to lunch instead. Where was lunch you ask?

 
In a vineyard. In Tuscany. In Italy. We got to try 5 wines (1 white, 3 reds, 1 dessert) and honestly, soak in the fact that we were eating and trying wines in a Tuscan vineyard. Unbelievable. Seriously incredible.

 
Lastly, we headed to Pienza, another small Tuscan village. Got to walk around away from the group and do some shopping here. Nothing particularly special before the long bus ride home, but a nice way to close up the day in the countryside.

I know that this post is a little short, but honestly, just let the pictures do the talking here.