So the best day I've had so far here was on Thursday when we headed to Tenuta Torciano winery in San Gimignano. I first went to this winery in 2007 when I was studying abroad and remembered having such a great time that I wanted to bring Courtney back. It was going to be a little different this time as when I went before we were in a guided tour of Tuscany in a car, but we were confident we could figure out the train situation and conquer the almost hour long walk to the winery, since walking in the Tuscan countryside sounded wonderful.
So we set off on our journey, and of course we were running a little late in getting to the station. After grabbing our ticket and figuring out our platform we scooted to the train and settled in. 2 minutes before the train was set to leave I realized we hadn't validated our ticket, which can result in a 50 euro fine, so of course I sprinted out of the train without even thinking. They also have the validating stations at the front of the platform (yea, real useful) so I literally sprinted and cut off an old woman in the process (sorry!!). In the meantime I left Court with my purse and no ticket, so naturally she was freaking out. All was ok though and I made it back to the train in time for us to hear there was a 10 minute delay. We didn't think anything of the delay until we got to Empoli where we needed to change trains and we found out the platform our next train was on with just enough time to watch it chugging away from us...so sad. Welp, we had an hour to wait for the next train, which would also get us to our destination train station only 20 minutes before we had to be at the winery. This was definitely not enough time to walk, but we figured we could pick up a cab. When we got to the tiny station in the middle of no where we realized that this was never going to happen. Only one other person got off the train with us and he stared at us like "what are you two doing here??" and jumped in one of those tiny trucks with 3 wheels that look more like they should be part of a lego set then on a real road. Guess we were going to walk! It would have been nice; however the lack of sidewalks and us rushing made it a little less relaxing. Ah well, we'll be out in the countryside again sometime soon I'm sure!
We finally made it to the winery after a 45 minute speedwalk and instantly all of work to get there was worth it and beyond. They set us up in a 2 person table facing out as if we were the princesses of the winery, which is how they referred to us. There were big tour groups there of Americans so it felt nice being just a 2 person group. I learned again how to smell, taste, swirl the wine and how to keep our hands on the table at all times to avoid looking like a drunk. All good things to know! Pierluigi, the owner, has expanded his empire more since we were there before and there were a ton more people since it's still tourist season so we were treated to our learning from one of the 2 brothers working there. The first brother who ushered us in and declared "I love Washington DC...well I love the girls from Washington DC" after he found out where we were from, was mainly working behind the scenes and the older, more flirty, and married brother walked us through the tasting. We feasted on cheese, bread, salami, salad (with balsamic vinaigrette made at the winery that Courtney was obsessed with) and later had mama's homemade lasagna with truffle oil on top....seriously HEAVEN. So delicious. It seemed as though the tour groups were all leaving at once so the main room was inundated with people buying bottles of wine so Courtney and I just sat there and enjoyed people watching. A woman actually came up to us and said how pretty and happy we looked and she said she wanted to take a picture of us, which I thought was kind of weird and thought I misunderstood her and she actually wanted us to take a picture of her. Nope, in fact she didn't even take a picture of us she recorded us on her little camera. So weird. Oh well, we'll take the compliment I guess? After the crowds left we were basically in the main room by ourselves and got to watch what only Courtney and I could describe as an Italian sitcom. The owner would come in from his group outside and spit out all of this Italian to his staff, telling them they did something wrong or need to get more cheese(!!) and then he would open the door back outside and start in on his uber friendly english speech. Also, the only woman working was Mira and she basically only spoke Italian so she was riding the older brother who was married and saying how he is such a flirt. She was our favorite, especially when all the guys would be yelling for her and you would just hear "MIRA" over and over again, then she'd come strolling in.
When everyone found out we had walked to the winery from the train station their looks were priceless. Pierluigi shouted "Are you crazY??" The brothers had offered to drive us to another train station in Poggibonsi (if there is a funnier named train station, I have no idea) so we wouldn't have to change trains. The owner would have none of that, stating it was "dangerous" to go with the brothers. He had to take his son down to the scooter repair shop anyways down in the city so he offered to take us. It was very nice of him and he even walked us into the station to make sure we were ok. During our time talking to him we set up what may be a job opportunity in social media marketing for his winery. I talked up Caroline of course and then was trying to sell him my skills, which I guess are only that I'm young and use the internet for anything and everything...counts for something right? Oh and I forgot to mention that he gave us 3 free wines (totaling about 100 euro) and our tastings were free. It was crazy! We were so appreciative and we are definitely going to back there!
The train back was ok, but we had a couple bouts of anxiety if we were headed in the right direction. We ended up in Florence and back at our apt around 9:30 and immediately passed out. It was a long, but wonderful day in Tuscany!
Poggibonsi is Italian for Foggy Bottom.
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