So my roommates and I decided the weekend of the February 16th and 17th that we were going to go to Tuscany for the weekend. We looked online and found an agriturismo (bed and breakfast type place) in a small town called Cetona. It was a beautiful weekend! Unfortunately it was one of the colder weekends they have had this winter, but it was still perfect.
A group of 6 of us went up early Saturday morning where the owner, Maurellio (a little old Italian man who spoke no English), came and picked us up at the train station and took us back to the place, called Atelier Cetona. His wife is German but spoke perfect English, and the two of them welcomed us into their home right away. They even made room for us at the lunch table where they had the cook include us in his AMAZING homemade gnocchi and rosemary potatoes and chicken lunch!
The place has about 7 rooms off to the side of the main house, all double rooms. Katie Flynn and I got the matrimonial suite as we like to call it! This particular agriturismo offers weekend art classes, as well as week-long cooking classes and art classes in the spring and into the summer if anyone is interested! Even though it is winter and nothing is in bloom, it is one of the most beautiful little places I have ever seen and I can only imagine what it is like in the spring! Irma, the German lady, was telling us how beautiful and colorful the flowers are on the hillsides by their home.
The agriturismo itself is situated right next to the Vigneti Gentili, the vineyard in the area that provides all the wine to the restaurants in the town. Before lunch, Mauriello took us into town where we went wine tasting at the cellar of the Vigneti Gentili! We tried two red and two white as well as a dessert wine, and naturallyI bought a bottle of each kind. The whole experience reminded me of when Jamie, Dad and I went wine tasting in Australia, but i guess wine tasting is a universal thing.
That afternoon after lunch, four of us had a nice long siesta in Fly and my matrimonial bed for body warmth. Even though the sun was out it was so cold!! After our wonderful nap, Maurellio drove us into the BEAUTIFUL medieval town of Cetona where we walked around for about an hour and a half up on the hillside through the residential part of town. I could live there in a heartbeat. We were on the top of the hill right at sunset and it was gorgeous. Being in the small town made me semi-regret that I did not give small town Italy a second thought, and part of me wishes that I had gone to a smaller town than Rome. It made me miss Parma. Oh well, no regrets.
That night we went out to dinner and they served us the same wine we tasted that afternoon!! In bed by 10 after taking a BATH in the bathtub...I couldn't ask for a better night.
The next morning we woke up and went horseback riding in the Tuscan hills. Even though it was colder than I would have liked, it was AMAZING!! My horse's name was Luna (Moon) and we rode in the hills for about an hour through vineyards and the countryside. I wish you all could have been with me for this experience. What is better than horseback riding through the Tuscan hills?
It was a lovely weekend and I wish you all could have been a part of it.
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