Horsing Around Under the Tuscan Sun

HELLO TUSCANY!!!

For the amount of times I have been to Italy I think it's a bit surprising that I have never been to the city of Florence.  Florence is the tourist capital of Italy and lucky for us it is the capital of the Tuscany region.  Welcome to Italian wine country!!!  Meg and I set up a tour before we got there and we were anxious to get started!!

We booked our tour through the company Fun In Tuscany and could not have been happier.

We dropped a portion of the group off at their Chianti Winery tour. And we moved on to begin ours.

There in the distance is the Medieval town of San Gimignano, which we get a much closer look at in a bit.

But first, our horseback ride. Yes that is correct, Meg and I chose the horseback riding tour through Tuscany.

Fresh fig anyone?

I see horses! 

We tried the grapes, which were obviously delicious, but slightly bitter.  

The horse stables were just a short walk across the street from the Chianti Winery.

While we waited, we sampled their collection of Honey.  I'm not a big fan of honey, but some of the lighter more flowery ones were delicious.  I have to say, European honey tastes much different  better than the honey we have at home.

And in true Italian fashion, we had to have an espresso break before the horseback riding could commence.

And now, the moment you have all been waiting for, Meg on a horse!

This is my horsey.

And the rest of the groups.

And here we go! 

The scenery was just simply amazing.

It was slightly difficult to take pictures on the horse without falling to my death, but I did my best. 

What a fine behind....

Meg's horse had a mind of it's own, and the tour guide did not seem to be too worried about it. 

King of the Hill.

And mine didn't like walking on the pavement no matter how much I tried to steer him there. I was hit in the face with several tree branches...

Enter our riding companion. 

Meg was banished to the back because her horse couldn't play nice and was kicking and biting the others.

Olive trees

Finally we made it back to the stables and could not have been more ready to start tasting chugging wine.

Bye Buddy

Goodbye stables! We are off to the next leg of our tour! 

Surprisingly, we still looked pretty decent after going on a horseback ride and wearing helmets (shocking, I know...)

Welcome to the Medieval town of San Gimignano!

And really it's not a post about Italy unless there is gelato. And there is always gelato. 

Introducing Sergio, the master ice cream maker at the World Champion Gelateria Dondoli.

They have a wide selection of exotic flavors which made it difficult to choose only one. I had Rosemary and white wine.

The day we took the tour happened to be September 11th and looking at this picture you can see something very familiar, Twin Towers. The New York Twin Towers were actually modeled after these.

Meg totally enthralled with our tour guides story. 

And gelato, of course. 

We had a quick stop in the Museum. 

A model of the old Medieval town. 

Giants towering over the Medieval town. Our tour guides idea...

I wish these weren't heavy and more importantly breakable... I really love the lemon pattern.

Meg's new boyfriend

This meat shop really makes me miss being a vegetarian. 

After we had some free time to walk around we met the group back at the entrance.  We got back in the car and were ready to move onto the next part of the tour, Lunch!

The pictures I took on the car ride over didn't exactly turn out that well, but I was still amazed by the beauty of the Tuscan countryside.  Stay tuned for the best part of our tour and my favorite post yet! (because this post is already extremely too long...)