A wonderful afternoon

Last Thursday afternoon after a seemingly endless Italian class we had a wonderful little IES field trip. We hopped on the bus and headed through the beautiful rolling hills to the little town of Montalcino. After about 40 minutes of watching the countryside roll by we arrived at the edge of town and hoped off the bus. The town is situated on top of a hill in the middle of a beautiful valley. We walked to the fort/castle to look and around and take some pictures and decided walk up on the castle walls. The view from the walls was just amazing and most definitely worth the admission. The weather was perfect and you could see forever is every direction. It was one of the most beautiful view I have ever seen. We were walking on the ramparts where soldiers centuries ago had fired arrows from defending the city in the fight between Florence and Siena. All the little towns in between took sides or was made an out post and so the whole area was involved. We also climbed up to one of the towers which was super cool, although going down the ladder was a bit nerve racking. After spending about a half an our at the castle we went into the town to walk around for a little. The area around Montalcino is famous for it's Brunello wine and so accordingly the town is a huge wine making and selling. It is such a tiny town, with about 3 main streets longways and maybe 7 across but in the area are close to 700 wine shops. Once we started walking around it was easy to see how they fit that many wine shops when you realize that every single shop sells wine. Even the gelato store has wine for sale. We has about 30 minutes to walk around and unless you love wine I don't think you could really spend much more time there.
After meeting back with the group we hopped back on the bus and headed to a little vineyard to take a tour and do a wine tasting. As we walked into the building we were ushered into a side area with huge casks of wine. These barrels were probably at lead 5 feel in diameter and filled with different years of wine. Our tour guide was a cute little old man whose family has owned and run the vineyard and winery for generations. He walked us all over the winery and at one point we went through a little passage way underground built centuries ago. It was funny to come out of the old small passage and end up in a huge high tech room with steel cylinders that they use to make the wine. After our tour we went into the wine tasting room and all sat around one long table set with a place for each of us. Our guide now became our host and sat at the head of the table and looked so proud sitting there and looking at all of us and teaching us about his wines. We had 5 different drinks, 3 wines, a grappa and an amaretto. The wines were really good and one of them was a Brunello which is what the region is famous for. Along with our wine we had delicious prosciutto and cheese and then we had fabulous homemade biscotti. After a few quick pictures we headed back to Siena all full and quite happy. Needless to say it was a wonderful afternoon in the Tuscan countryside.