Tuscany | Fall 2019
Sharing our itinerary from our trip to Italy last fall. With everything going on right now, looking back at these photos brings me so much joy. I pray all of these small businesses make it through this tough time. We hope we can make our way back some day.
Thursday - Night flight from Newark, NJ to Rome - I can never sleep on flights so this made for a very rough early AM arrival but we pushed through!
Friday - Land early AM. We rented a car at the airport and drove to our hotel in the Siena region of Tuscany, Borgo San Felice. Since the drive was about 3 hours, we stopped in the little town of Orvieto on the way for lunch at Ristorante da Maurizio. We of course had to try some gelato and it did not disappoint!
Borgo San Felice is a vineyard so even though we were exhausted, the drive up to the hotel was a mix of towering cypress trees and rows of grape vines. It was was I had imagined Tuscany to look like. We had just enough time to unpack, rest for a couple minutes and shower before our 4PM Wine Tasting. We decided to continue our cocktails on the patio near the pool and dinner was just a couple steps away at Osteria del Grigio. We ended up dining here our last night too, everything was delicious!
Saturday - We weren’t quite caught up on sleep but had a full day of wine tasting in Montalcino planned. Our driver met us at the hotel around 9AM and we were off to our first vineyard. I would definitely recommend a driver and itinerary planned for one day of a trip to Tuscany. You can fully enjoy taking everything in from the views to the drinks without having to worry about who will get you home!
We visited three wineries in the region throughout the day:
Ciacci Piccolomini - this was a group tasting and we actually ended up sitting to a couple that had a couple of overlapping friends in the States. When we travel, I am always reminded of how real the 6 degrees of separation really is.
Poggio Rubino - This was one of our favorites and in addition to wine we had sent back home from Borgo San Felice, we were lucky enough to have 2015 Brunello sent back to the states from this vineyard. Brunello is only made with one type of grape - the Sangiovese, which is popular to the region. And before Brunello can be sold, it has to age for at least 5 years. We were among one of the first to receive the 2015 Brunello from Poggio Rubino when they released it earlier this year (2020). This is a small family-owned vineyard, like many of the vineyards in the region but there was just something about it that seemed so special. Our lunch was homemade in their kitchen and we got to enjoy it privately on the balcony along with wine pairings throughout.
Castiglion del Bosco - I was excited to visit this winery after seeing so many photos of it and the fact that it is owned by designer, Ferragamo. We had a private tasting here and our tastemaker was so entertaining. It was towards the end of the day so we joined in with the tasting a bit and gave us a fun tour of the private members club.
We finished our day of wine tasting with dinner at Osticcio in Montalcino. The was a really unique eating experience and everything we ate was something we’d never tasted before. The chef mixed a lot of ingredients I would never have thought would work together and somehow they did!
Sunday - We were lucky enough that our trip overlapped with our good friends, Sara and Alex. They stayed at our hotel before heading off to a different location in Tuscany for a wedding later in the week. The four of us chose Le Pietre Vive to learn how to authentically make pasta. The class location was so special. We were in the home of a family where framed photos of generations hung along the walls and grand children were running in and out of the house throughout our course. Our teacher, Nonna Ciana really took a liking to T - it was adorable.
We would definitely recommend this and we were so full after our multi course lunch that we took the rest of the day relaxing by the pool back at Borgo San Felice. We later ventured off to town with our friends for dinner, sitting al fresco on a quiet street tucked away from the main road.
Monday - This was our last full day in Tuscany and we had a morning into afternoon bike ride planned. Our tour guide met us at our hotel in the morning and toured us through the nearby town, Villa a Sesta. He was born and raised there so had a lot of information. We stopped at a local winery for a tasting before sitting down for lunch at a local eatery where our guide knew the owners. To close out our bike ride, he took us through a secret garden that was owned by a friend of his. The garden was set high up so from the view you could see the city of Siena in the distance and hills upon hills of cypress trees.
We had a total of four amazing days and nights at Borgo San Felice and left Tuesday morning for Amalfi. We were so sad to leave this magical place!
Tips:
Renting a car is great if you plan to do your own exploring while in Tuscany. There are a ton of towns dotting along the whole region. We didn’t even have enough time to see all the ones we had on our list!
I would have doubled our time in Tuscany. There is so much to see and do. The hotel we stayed at was beautiful and so relaxing.
Tipping isn’t mandatory but we always add on at least 10% in restaurants if we’re happy with the service.
