The Geography of the Region:
Chianti is made uup of an extensively mountainous area located in the center of Tuscany between Florence and Siena. It is composed of 8 municipalities, SGaiole in Chianti, Radda in Chianti, Catellina in Chianti, Tavarnelle & Barberino Val d'Elsa, Greve in Chianti, & San Casciano. The landscape is characterised by alternating valleys, hill and steep peaks. The entire area is scattered with ancient hamlets, churches and abbeys, turreted castles and fortresses, farmhouses, villas and both paved and dirt roads.
A stronger then normal Hail Storm that occurred just about every
Day that we stayed in the CHianti region. From short sleezed shirts to
Winter coats in a matter of moments. THis picture was taken at the Rascalli Vinyards
located at the foot of Castle de Brolio.
We went to a restuarant named Il Falconiere recommended to us by our friends Doug and Judy on Limerance.
So far, it rates as the best meal that we have had in all of Europe. The Il Falconiere is just outrside of Cortona.
A short funny story
To get there we followed a bunch of signs up a local mountain and sure enough, there were no more signs and we had arrived on a mountain road that a 45 wheel jeep would have difficulty with. We had to turn around, but there was basically no space to do it and everything was on a tremendous gradient. Finally, and old italian woman came by and she indicated that we should go a bit forward a down a private pathway into a farm so we could turn around. Now this is not a farm by US standards, well perhaps one located in the hills of West Virginia. Anyway, we went for it. As we plundered our way downward on his driveway to a patch of land no bigger than a postage stamp - this is where we were going to turn around, I could hear all of the olive trees that had overgrown the driveway tearing at the sides of the camper. Too late, we were committed. When I got to the turnaround point, it was horribly wet and slippery, but with Karen pushing and a bit of luck, I was able to turn the camper around and begin heading up the hill to the main drive. Again, I could hear the tearing of the olive trees against the camper, but alas, we made it to the top. TO my bewilderment, when I stepped out of the camper to collect Karen, there she was walking up the hill, holding a bunch of camper parts that had been scraped off the camper as we went either down or up the driveway. THen we discovered we were missing more. We looked high and low for the remaining parts and wer lucky to find all but one. Finally, we gave up. We assume a light bulb for the camper backup lights has been properly buried amongst the olive trees in Siena.
Well we did finally find Il Falconiere and the remaining photos on this page is but a glimpse of this fab place.
We are sitting in the wine cellar of Il Falconiere awaiting our 3 hour lunch to be served. By the way, the superb wine served to us in the wine cellar was Vino Nobile di Montepulciano '99, Val di Piatta.
Not only was it excellent, it was gratis.
We both believe it was one of the best wines we had during the entire trip, especially for those from Chianti. Montepulciano is an Italian town South of Siena and it is noted for its wine.
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Our first view of Il Falconiere
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Karen can't wait to taste the food
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Landscaping was beautiful and the flowers were just coming out.
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One of the sedveral hotel buildings for Il Faconiere
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We had breakfast in the gazebo
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Looking at Siena from Il Falconiere
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