San Gimignano & Wine Tasting in Tuscany

On our 6th tour day we headed through the Chianti wine region and stopped in medieval town of San Gimignano, famous for its surving towers.  It has 13 but once had as many as 72.  There was great views of rolling hillsides and vineyards as far as one could see.  It also has the world champion gelato shop that in fact had some really fantastic gelato. 
After our stop in San Gimignano we headed to the Fattoria Castello Il Palagio in between Florence and Siena. This place is a vineyard that is allowed to call their wine Chianti Classico and Chianti Reserve, it comes only from this particular region in Tuscany and is under the label of black rooster.   They showed us the wine cellar with huge barrels bigger than a large van and then we had our wine and olive oil tasting.  The olive oil is also produced there as well as some other products, that  I may have to declare when we go through customs, including: olive oil preserves, and balsamic vinegar.  It was such a gorgeous day there,  I wished I could have stayed there for a week and help pick grapes for a few hours per day LOL.  Our tour guide at the vineyard said that it used to be the thing to do in the 70's and 80's but now everything wills have to go to machinery because they're are enough people going to the vineyards to pick.  Oh well, there was also a castle which we got to see, but only from the courtyard, it was very well kept because they have been holding weddings there.

When we returned to Florence we cleaned up and met up with our new found friends: newlyweds Jackie and Matt and celebrating their 6 year anniversary Jenice and Jon.  Our tour manager Laura made reservations for us at Osteria dei Baroncelli where they specialize in Florentine Steak.  It is a big hunk of beef quickly seared and both sides and served with potatoes.  They sell this beauty by the kilo, uh yeah. I'm salivating just remembering the explosion of beef goodness in my mouth.  They have a website in case you're interested www.osteriadeibaroncelli.it.  An  interesting thing happened on our way there (we didn't have an exact address but just a description) we were all a little confused and then out no where we see a Antonio Banderas' look alike and we asked him if he knew where the restaurant was and he ever so kindly walked us to the restaurant.

No one wanted our night in Florence to end so we walked over to the famous bronze boar and as is the tradition, we rubbed his snout for luck to return us to Florence again soon.  Then we found a highly recommended gelato shop called Per Que No? translates to Why Not? And got some really great gelato there.  Slowly we made our way to a large piazza were a live band was playing and we paid the price to enjoy the beautiful night al fresco with an espresso and jazz playing to bring our Fiorenze experience to its conclusion. 

Ciao!