firenze: saturday and sunday

Saturday was our wine tasting day in Tuscany! We left Florence on a tour bus at 2:00PM and went into Tuscany. Our wine tasting was at a castle with a lot of history. The castle used to be the home of the Pacci family. The Pacci family was the second most powerful family after the Medici's.

The Pacci's attempted to conquer the land from the Medici's by killing the two Medici brothers when they were at church in the Duomo on a Sunday. The attack only killed one of the brothers and Lorenzo escaped. Lorenzo then took revenge on the Pacci's by killing anyone who supported them as well as the family themselves.

We were able to be in the room where the Pacci family plotted the attack on the Medici's, which was also the room where Lorenzo came to after he killed all the Pacci's to destroy the Pacci coat of arms that was above the fire place. The room also contained one of Raphael's original works; La Belle Jardiniere (The Beautiful Gardner). It was really interesting to see all the history in that one room.

Under the castle were the barrels full of wine. We went to the Chianti region so all the barrels contained Red Chianti wine. Also downstairs were the old terracota pots that used to hold all the Olive Oil. We were able to learn a lot about Chianti wine as well as Olive Oil and why Extra Virgen Olive Oil is the only kind that should be purchased by anyone.


After our tour, we got to try one white Chardonnay wine that the family makes and two of their Chianti's. We were also given a sample of the olive oil and other small snacks. After that we went into the shop where I bought some Olive Oil and we all shared a 10 Liter box of the Red Wine to drink.

Saturday night, Valentine's Day, four of us went to a restaurant Tres Panchi which is a tiny little restaurant that is not well known to tourists. At dinner, we decided to continue on with the Chianti taste so we got a bottle of Chianti Reserva (Reserva meaning that the wine was aged in the barrels and in the bottle). We then each got a salad to start, I got and arugula, parmaggiano reggiano cheese, fresh mozzarella, and avocado salad. After that we all shared three dishes. The first was Truffle Risotto; me being a huge Risotto fan, LOVED this dish. Then we got a chicken breast in Lemon Sauce which was also delicious and the third was Ravioli was Gorgonzola and Arugula sauce. Each dish was amazing. For dessert we shared Cheesecake and Chocolate Cake as well as some Limoncello and Cappucinos. We all were stuffed after that meal, luckily the Limoncello helped us feel a little bit digested.

Saturday night we hung out with a group of boys who also go to NYU and then we all went to a bar and then to a club called Space. The club was huge with three floors and we had a lot of fun! The only bad thing was the walking home at the end of the night because we were so far from the apartment.

This morning I woke up around 11:20AM and packed and caught the 12:27PM train back to Pisa for my flight home. The flight back to Barcelona was on time and everything went very smoothly. Now I'm back in my apartment resting from the weekend and getting ready for school tomorrow. I will add pictures tomorrow of everything from Florence!