here's my third installment of my Rome trip! actually it's not really about Rome haha, but i took a day tour out to Tuscany with Dark Rome tours, and i had a really great experience! so i wanna share it with all of you (: TUSCANY IS SO BEAUTIFUL. i feel so thankful that spring is here (FINALLY) because it makes everything look so much more picturesque ^^
look look look at this!!!! :)))
well i'm really glad that i went on this tour, because i'd initially wanted to take a day trip from Florence instead of Rome, which would have brought me to the Chianti region of Tuscany. no less beautiful, definitely, but Chianti is a wine that i'm already familiar with, whereas this tour from Rome brought me to the regions of Montepulciano and Montalcino, which i'd never heard of before, and apparently they produce the best wine in the italy!! no kidding! at least that is what they claimed. haha.
we had some time to spend touring Montepulciano, where we had a tour of the Duomo, their little streets, and even a wine cellar! that was pretty cool. we saw ginormous barrels of wine, and even had a mini wine tasting at the end (:
the best part of our tour was definitely our lunch+wine tasting in a traditional tuscan restaurant in a midst of a vineyard in Montalcino! pretty cool huh? ;) we had the opportunity to try the prestigious Brunello di Montalcino, which is deemed the BEST wine in italy (and the world? since italy produces the best wine in the world haha). also the Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, another very famous wine in Italy. all the wines we tried (there were two others) were of DOCG certification, which is the highest certification you can get for wine and means that the grapes were harvested from a particular region, in controlled quantities to ensure their quality. COOOOOOL. we tried 4 kinds of wines in total. and while initially we only had a tasting amount poured for us, we could subsequently take extra servings if we wanted to. totally had our fill of wine sloshing inside us x.x haha
and here are pics of our 3 course lunch! (: started with a lovely platter of hams, bread and cheese. i've always wanted to try doing a platter like this **party inspiration!! :D
this was followed by a pasta - very simple, typical italian where you have pasta with just the sauce and nothing else. haha this totally reminded me of lao shu fen.
and dessert! (: haha i couldn't resist ^^ especially with all the alcohol, it probably opened my appetite or something. i probably had 4-5 pieces of this yummy chocolate tart :D greedy pig haha.
finished off with this biscuit thing with almonds in it, which is a specialty in the tuscany/florence region i think! you're supposed to dip it in this REALLY alcoholic wine, which comes in a shot glass. ooh la la. the alcohol really shoots up your head haha.
this entire trip took a whole day, with half of the time spent in the bus, which you can't really avoid because tuscany is really far away. and pretty inaccessible by other modes of transport judging by the areas we saw on the way there. so this was definitely a very convenient and comfortable way to go there (: the bus was really comfy! and the good thing is that these tours are conducted in small groups, which gives you a lot of interaction with your guide. definitely a tour i would recommend! (:
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