The Long And Winey Road

It feels good to back in Volterra. We checked out the town,saw some new faces and some familiar places, bought some hair conditioner for me and met Annie before her tour and arranged to see her after her tour to off-load gifts for Sophia and Diego. Had a great visit and some wine. After Annie head home, we went for pizza. We finished our evening with a visit to our favorite gelato spot; the one with the editable bowls! Yum! After our bus/train/bus/bus trip we were ready for bed.

Tuesday morning we hit the town running. We went in search of the jewelry store where Jim bought me a necklace for our second anniversary,; sadly she was closed for "ferie" or summer vacation. Hunted down a bronzed lizard, the two yarn/baby shops (!) and bought matching t-shirts with the town hall on them for Jim and me. Found a deck of Italian cards for this region, although it was much less exciting since we knew they were correct and there was no hill between our hotel and the spot of purchase. We found a little shop where they make prints and decided to buy one for home. While we were in the process of trying to determine the conversion from centimeters to inches without any glasses amongst the three of us, I mentioned the jewelry store's vacation status and how much I had been looking forward to getting another anniversary gift from there and how we had been married here in Volterra...all of a sudden she rushes out of her shop and returns dragging poor Paola, the jeweler, behind her! Jim bought me a beautiful necklace and a print for our living room. All in all a very successful day! After dinner we returned to the gelato shop. We both got edible bowls of the exact same gelato...except Jim got a cookie! That just doesn't seem fair or right! He said it's because he has their face...that and he's very cute! Can't argue there.

Today we spent the entire day on a wine tour with Annie's husband Francesco. We saw three local wineries. The first was very traditional, small and very old. We saw where they hang the grapes (by hand!) to dry for making Vin Santo wine. The second stop included an amazing lunch paired with wonderful wines. Francesco is very knowledgable and shared all kinds of wine information with us...guess now we have no excuses for drinking bad wine. The last winery was thoroughly modern, with a processing facility built into the ground utilizing gravity for moving the grapes so that they won't stress them....the grapes that is! The barrel room, which is 20 meters under ground, is naturally cooled by the underground stream that runs through the rocks. It was the entire spectrum of Italian wine making. We came back and took a nap (or passed out depending how you look at it). Sadly we ate so late that the gelato shop was closed...I guess no cookie for Jim tonight.