Florence has been beautiful, the architecture is wonderful and every twist of the winding streets seems to reveal quaint shops and beautiful sculptures. But Italy is know for the countryside as much as its cities. To explore rural Tuscany we booked ourselves on a wine tasting bike tour that turned out to be an exceptional investment.
The tour started with a mini-bus ride from the city center out to the countryside. While traipsing through the hills and villages we had the opportunity to chat up the other couple in the van. Turns out they had just gotten engaged a few days earlier in Rome, and me being a sucker for engagement stories had them recount all the romantic details.
Well acquainted with our guide and the other couple we arrived at the 12th century castle and rejoined the rest of the group. We then proceeded to tour the castle's wine cellar, were introduced to the wine making process, climbed to the top of the castle tower, and rounded it all out with a sampling of wine and olive oil.
We then mounted our rides, my bike was named Paris Hilton (I will let you fill in the inevitable joke) and hit the road. We followed the rolling hills on a country road lined by olive trees and grape vines. The scenery was breathtaking (I attribute some of the gasps to a few large hills) and the bike ride was the kind of experience that inspires me to expand my vocabulary of adjectives beyond beautiful, glorious, magnificent, etc... because I don't currently posses and adequate wealth of descriptors to properly describe what my eyes beheld. But trust me it was beyond amazing.
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