Bike Tour
I signed up with this tour group described thoroughly at "www.ibikeitaly.com". The ad said we'd bike around the Tuscan countryside and stop at a top notch restaurant, then tour a local winery. After sampling the wine, we'd return. You meet on a bridge over the Arnot River and get on a bus which takes you out to a garage 5 minutes outside of Florence. The tour guide, in this picture, started out by telling us we were all going to join a work camp. Fortunately, he was kidding.
We were each given a 24 speed bike, helmet, and water bottle.
Each bike had a name on a sticker over the front tire. Ironically, I got to mount and ride "Jersey Girl".
We headed out into the countryside and saw these olive trees in the distance.
We parked our bikes briefly, to visit a 14th century monastery. I snapped a picture of this view on the way up.
The Florence cityscape was fully visible from the monastery.
In the monastery's courtyard there was a little pond with fish.
We saw this plaque mentioning the mother of someone you might know.
The monastery had a spiffy little museum with ornate artifacts.
I was surprised to see this mummy included in the modest collection.
Here's the Italian description attached to the mummy if you'd care to translate.
A monastery will have, of course, a place of worship.
We also stopped at this small little church later on.
More sweeping views along the way to the restaurant. I was extremely hungry by then.
Here's the restaurant we stopped in. The food was really good, although I didn't eat as much as I'd have liked. They passed around various foods on plates. I kept anticipating a much bigger dish afterward. Eventually the "appetizers" stopped, and I had to scrounge for what was left over.
Here's where we comfortably waited as they set up the tables.
Here's where the local winery sold its wine.
Diego the dog was free to roam the winery. He didn't even have to entertain the customers, but he did anyway. When it rained, he suddenly vanished.
Lots of equipment for fermenting, storing, and bottling wine was found around the winery.
This part of the winery was the perfect home for countless daddy long leg spiders.
Wine was stored in these barrels. Atop one barrel you see a thing sticking out the top. That's a fermentation lock, which lets the gas escape the wine as it ferments, but does not let any air back in. I know this because making wine has similarities to brewing beer, one of my pastimes.
They produce olive oil at this winery too. Here's the room where olive oil is stored in terracotta containers.
Some random vegetables were grown at this winery.
Here are some of their olive trees. I followed other bikers out here, but left when I realized they just wanted to make out in private.
This is the view from across the street from the winery.
Here's a sign with the name of the winery. You can see they're advertising Chianti wine, which apparently is wine made from the Sangiovese grape. The wine has to come from a certain region and meet a certain quality standard to be given permission to be called "Chianti" wine. Even more exacting restrictions exist for Chianti Reserved. This all could have just been a sales pitch though.
We went up and downhill often, and my bike's gears screwed up 3 times. The seats were extremely painful to sit on. I continued to feel the pain for a week afterward. I did scold them about it, but if you decide to do this tour, make sure they describe what the bike seat will be like.
While waiting for the other bikers to arrive, I took a picture of this lizard.
Here's the one guy who wiped out during the tour. He's posing in a way so that you can see all of his injuries. Just at the end, you go downhill the rest of the way. Your bike can go very fast without pedaling, and turning can be rather perilous as well. That is where this guy fell.