My Lucky Day!

Under the Tuscan sun :)

Warning: The pictures you are about to see are breathtaking. They are real, un-photoshopped and my camera sucks and they still look good. This was one of the best days of my life.

After a good nights rest we got a free breakfast from the hotel including cute little packets of nutella, the staple in our diets. We hopped on a charter bus all dressed in sundresses heading to a vineyard in the Tuscan hills where we were going to have a tour of a castle, have an oil tasting, make homemade pasta, and do a wine tasting! Brace yourself. 

Stepped off the bus and saw this...my mouth was hanging open.

The drive was gorgeous and I had no idea what lay in store for us. We spent the day at Castello Del Trebbio which is the only currently inhabited castle left in Italy. It was originally owned by the Pazzi family in 1184 (pazzi translates to crazy in English). The Medici's were the most powerful family not only in Florence but in Europe all together, and the Pazzi's were plotting to kill them so they could be the most powerful family in all of Europe. There's a room at the castle called the "conspiracy room" where the family plotted their murder. They decided the best way to kill the Medici's unsuspectingly would be to do it at church...by the way the pope supported this. They were able to kill one of the men but another, Lorenzo got away. He had all the Pazzi's hung and took their castle, he also eventually became the pope, I'd say that's pretty good revenge. There was one coat of arms of the Pazzi family left at the castle in the courtyard. The castle has 40 bedrooms and our guide informed us that this is a small castle...pah.

Part of the courtyard! I think I'm going to move here after school...I mean they have 40 bedrooms they can spare one more.

Our guide was Alberto who is actually the cousin of the man who lives in the castle. The castle has stayed in the family for years. It was such a precious love story. A man and a woman met on the train, the woman was from Austria the man was from Italy. They immediately fell in love and got married, the man was 59 the woman was 19. A little icky. Nonetheless they lived happily together and had 5 kids. The husband bought his wife the castle as a gift for giving him 5 children in 6 years...any woman who can accomplish this deserves a castle. Then when they past, the 5 children were left to decide what to do with it. None of the children wanted it except for the 24 year old daughter Ana. She still lives there today, she's now 46, with her 3 children and her husband who runs the vineyard. The property has expanded so much and it contains a vineyard, a shop, a restaurant, and cottages for visitors to stay in. They also have about 20 weddings there a year. Pretty much I'm getting married there.

Us and Alberto outside the castle!

We took a tour of the wine cellar and came up to one of the dining rooms where we had an oil tasting. I really didn't know what to expect from this because I've never thought too much about olive oil, but it was really interesting especially for those of you that enjoy cooking! Alberto explained how they also make extra virgin olive oil with their olive trees. He was telling us that good olive oil has a lot of medicinal purposes and is really good for your health. He also said that most olive oils that you see in the store aren't good for you at all. You have to look for oils that have a acidity level of about .1 or .2% for it to be good extra virgin olive oil. Some olive oils that are suppose to be "good" have acidity of up to .8%. To get olive oils with a lower acidity its all about the time between when you pick the olives and when you squeeze them. The only time you can pick and squeeze the olives is during the month of November and you have to do the squeezing within 24 hours of squeezing. The olive oil they produce is not refined at all and no chemicals added which makes it untouched (virgin hehe). Alberto told us a funny story about how he gave these old british woman a tour of the castle and when he asked what does virgin mean? One of them responded, "Well this group doesn't know...or none of us remember." Hahaha.

Getting ready to make some pasta! Maybe my second time wearing an apron...oops.

After the tasting we went into the kitchen to work with his aunt Adrianna to make some pasta. I've never made homemade pasta before and we got to knead the dough, roll the dough, slice it, then dry it out. Adrianna made the most delicious sauces. She's been doing it for years and made it look so easy! Then we headed outside and across the path to the restaurant on the property. We sat and started drinking some Chianti which the region is famous for. 80% of their wine is made from the grapes that make Chianti. The meal was delicious and one of my favorite meals in Italy thus far.

The meat sauce and fettucini pasta!

The vegetable sauce with thinner pasta! My favoriteee

We had some time after to go into the shop and walk around the vineyard. It was absolutely breathtaking and looked like a green screen. I just sat and tried to soak in as much as I could. I felt like I was in Under the Tuscan Sun! We drove back to the city which was about a 40 minute drive. As soon as we got back it started drizzling, it was actually perfect timing. We grabbed our raincoats and were ready to shop till we dropped! I had a bunch of gifts to get from the market and a leather jacket for myself. Within the first 5 minutes of being in the market I felt a warm rain drop on my head. I was thinking hm...that's odd, and reached up to touch it, it felt kinda gooey then I looked at my hand...it was green. I hate pigeons. We went into one the leather shops as I was freaking out that I got pooped on. An old italian man working at the shop pulled out a tissue for me and told me it was good luck. Little did I know he was right!

Kelly and I dranking zee vino!

Through the haggling expertise of Katie Carlson Kelly and I were able to get jackets for 125 Euro when it was originally marked at 180 Euro. That's what I'm talking about! We got so much accomplished and got great gifts, we stopped for a quick panino at this restaurant called Barbeque right next to our hotel, they actually didn't have any barbeque...pretty sure they were just trying to attract Americans but hey it worked. We then got ready to hit the town!


As we walked down the block heading towards a pub we heard about, we heard "JMU?", we turned around to see a group of about 20 other JMU students studying abroad in Florence heading our way! It was the biggest coincidence ever! I found my friend Jordan who was on the trip and embraced in the streets of Florence! A bunch of the girls on my trip knew some of the people in their group. They are here studying for 8 weeks and got there just 4 days ago. They were heading to a pub crawl so we decided to join. It was such a fun night and we all made it back before we were locked out of our hotel.  We sang the fight song and probably did the J-M-U Dukesss chant 3 times at each pub.


Even more connections, we ran into a JMU Alum at one of the train stations the next day, and I didn't even mention the two sets of JMU parents on both sides of me in the line through customs at the airport in Rome the day I got here. JMU really never leaves you, you're a part of this family for the rest of your life :)