Tuscany at last--Fierenze and Poggibonsi

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

This morning we packed our bags and headed for Tuscany. Yeah—back to the mountains. As nice as our visit to Fraciacorta and the lake, we are all missing the beautiful mountains. Our visit today was to the University of Fierenze (Azienda Agricola Monepalde). Dr. Valentina Canuti, a doctoral student at the University, gave a presentation on the Tuscany region. We enjoyed her talk despite the blistering heat and humidity. Cal Poly professor Sherrie Niku went next and spoke on the history of winemaking in California.

After the presentations the program director took us on a tour of the school’s winery and we were all relieved to get a brief respite from the heat when it started raining. Sadly, it only lasted a few minutes...and then got really humid!

Our evening, and next hotel stop was in Poggibonsi, a really cute town between Florence and Siena. After checking into the hotel, we walked down the street to the center of town and found a place to have beers, do a little shopping, and purchase a bottle of Limoncello.
We found a really beautiful piazza where we had dinner. The restaurant was great, and several of our team mates ended up at the same place. It was a great meal, and afterwards we all ended our night with gelato.