Cantine Aperte

Every year there is a weekend in Italy called Cantine Aperte (Open Cellars), and it’s usually on the Sunday over Memorial weekend in Tuscany. We found ourselves back in Florence on Memorial weekend for the third time since 2006 as a result of the timing. Instead of staying in Florence the whole weekend, we decided to tour around Tuscany and see some new cities including Pienza, Montalcino, and we went back to see Siena for the second time.

My favorite- the mezzaluna pasta (half moon pasta stuffed with
ricotta and topped with pears and truffle)

The amazing Limoncino

After driving down on Friday afternoon, we went back to Cinque di Vino for dinner. We visited this restaurant with Josh’s mom and Mike when they visited last fall and it’s in a small town called San Casciano. It was worth going back! The food is so good and everything they use is local, fresh food. And of course, Josh couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have more of their amazing limoncino!! That same night there was a small food festival in the park outside of our restaurant. They had a lot of wine, meats, and even Sicilian Canolo! Of course we had to try them and it was pretty good. It doesn’t live up to the Canolo we’ve found at our pasticceria here in Milan, but it was still good J

Siena

an interesting fountain we saw on the walk into the center
of Siena from the parking lot

The old wooden doors on the Town Hall- it even had a doorbell...
I thought that was strange.

Outside the town hall- they have these hooks (to me they look like
places that were used to tie up horses)

The Town Hall

On Saturday, we drove straight to Siena in the morning. Siena is an amazing city! It’s small, but a lot of walking for a pregnant woman! It was good exercise. Every building seems to be 700 years old, and it’s similar to Venice in the fact that the buildings are a little run down. But this just adds to the charm of the city. We found a parking lot closer to the city center than on our previous trip- that was nice for me! And we toured the Town Hall Museum which was an amazing example of the Tuscan Gothic style, and medieval life. After that we grabbed some pizza and explored the city a little bit. After a little rain passed, it turned out to be a beautiful day! So, we did what the locals do- we sat in Piazza del Campo and enjoyed the sun for a while before heading to our B&B for the night.



View from the back side of the Town Hall

An interesting window display...



I love lamp!

Enjoying the sun

Our B&B was right outside of Pienza- another beautiful city! The B&B was great and I really want to go back. Our room was huge- it had a bedroom, bathroom, living room/dining room and a kitchen. They even had a really nice pool outside. I hope to go back this summer when it’s a little warmer so we can swim. After checking in, we headed into Pienza just in time to see all of the little shops closing. Unfortunately, in small towns in Italy everything closes before 7PM on a Saturday. On the bright side, we were able to catch an amazing sunset overlooking the Tuscan hills! Josh was able to get some nice pictures.

Pienza

Watching the sunset in Pienza

Since our room had a kitchen, we decided to hit up the local grocery store and cook dinner that night. It was a nice romantic dinner at the B&B with my hubby. After a long and tiring day that was a great idea.

 

The next day we toured some wineries for Cantine Aperte in addition to Montalcino. I’ll post more about that in a bit since this one is getting long and we have a lot of pictures… Stay tuned.

the view from our B&B