Tuscany

Observations:

At restaurants, you get local food.  So if you are near the sea, there’s lots of seafood on the menu, and not much else.  If you inland, there’s not much seafood.  Unless you’re driving on a highway, you are dealing with roundabouts.  We must have gone around hundreds of them so far.  In Tuscany, the bread is not salted.  If you eat it alone, it tastes very bland.  We think the idea is that you never eat it alone.  There’s always a topping, or at least olio di olive (olive oil).

We were in Tuscany!  Every time I think I’ve just experienced the most beautiful, most amazing place in Italy, we come to the next one and I am newly overwhelmed.  Rolling hills, Cyprus trees, vineyards, olive trees, and Crayola’s “Burnt Siena” coloring the countryside.

And we stayed in a castle!  Castello delle Quattro Torra (Castle of Four Towers) was built in the 1200s.  It’s situated apart from, but in sight of the nearest town, Siena.  Of course we only saw parts of it, but what we did see of the inside was spectacular.  Lots of stairs to climb, especially since our room was in one of the towers!  It’s not dark and musty, as I had allowed myself to imagine when envisioning our stay there.  You know, images of dark hallways lit only by candles and Dracula lurking in a corner somewhere.  Ha ha.  Rather, it’s well-maintained, very pleasant, bright, and sunny thanks to the many big windows.  The owner, Nicola, is warm, helpful and friendly, and he ensured that our stay there was perfect! 

Here’s what it was like walking in for the first time:

 The front of the castle

The front door

 Walking in you find yourself in the center of the building which is open to the sky

 First flight of stairs

 After the first flight, you turn and see this door

 Then the second flight (there's the door down at the bottom)

Then you turn again

Third flight

 And then you see part of the main living area

The door to our room

The stairs to our room

Our room - level one

Then up the stairs to level two

Isn't that amazing???  And looking out the windows (there were five of them) from the upper level:

 That's our car parked among the olive trees

Tuscany in all it's glory!

The view from the lower level of our room

The castle from the side

Our room (the windows at the top of the tower)!

From the front of the castle, our room was in the left tower.  If you look closely, you can see me waving from up there

We had our own private room for breakfast.  The food was delicious.  My favorite part was the warm brioche (like a croissant) and their homemade jams - orange marmalade and plum.  The coffee was great.  So was the setting.  So was the view.  So was everything.

View from the breakfast room

Funny picture of the day:

In Italy, even castles have clotheslines!