Bike Tour of Tuscany, Siena, San Gimignano and Assisi

So last Friday, me, Brett and Tay went on a bike ride through Tuscany, specifically Chianti. When we got to their office, they overbooked the number of people on the tour so there wasn't enough transportation to get everyone up to the castle, so we got the VIP treatment and had our own personal chauffeur, Alessio. He was one of our bike tour guides and he drove the 3 of us up in his little peddle pusher european car through the back roads of Tuscany which was so beautiful. We lucked out and the weather was more than perfect, it was high 60's with not a cloud in the sky. Fall in Tuscany is probably one of the most amazing things I have ever seen, it puts New England fall to shame and thats pretty hard to do.
Once we got up to the castle, you immediately could smell the wine and the olive oil that was being made. Our bike tour guide, the owner of the company, took us all on a private tour of the castle and we were able to see hundreds of barrels of wine that were being aged(they were huge)as well as where they made both the wine and the olive oil...and they don't stomp the grapes anymore which I was kinda disappointed to hear. Then they took us up to the fortress tower of the castle where we got a 360 view of the hills and vineyards that surround the castle. After that we were able to go to the grape storage room and eat as many grapes as we desired! They were so sweet and I'm pretty sure Taylor and I ate an entire shelf ourselves haha, we couldn't contain ourselves. We then made our way out of the castle and into the courtyard where we were given a free olive oil and wine tasting, probably the best red wine I have tried here so far. Bellisima!
We finally got our bikes all fitted(mine was name Marilyn Monroe, by the company not me) and we started the trek. I put my Lance skills to use, once again, and I conquered the trails, it was so much fun. The course was about 13 miles long and it went mainly through Chianti as well as some other small towns on the hill sides. About half way through, we stopped at a restaurant and had a 3 course meal which was once again, bellisima! I had mushroom and snausage risotto for my main meal and frutti di busco gelato, mmmmmm so good. After feasting, they decide to tell us that there is a pretty treacherous part of the course and the 3 of us were like, "yeah we are in pretty good shape, we can handle it." No way. It was a hill that was no exaggeration, a straight shot up for about 3/4 of a mile. Brett and I kept up with Taylor for a good half of it(she is on the Triathlon team at Colorado)and then I developed asthma and Brett started to roll backwards hahaha! So we let her conquer the monster and we walked behind. All in all, we were the first three to finish of about 30 so, we are still pretty proud of ourselves.
On Saturday, our program brought us to Siena and San Gimignano which are also in the Tuscan region of Italy. We went on walking tours of each and had a fair amount of free time to explore on our own. San Gimignano is famous for its towers, it used to have over 30 towers throughout the small town and now they only have 14 that are remaining. These towers were constructed and owned by the wealthy and were used as either storage, part of their homes and on occasion as protection for the town. The reason why there aren't as many standing is because of either destruction from war or the family lost their financial status among the community and it was to be cut down. It was pretty interesting to see and to learn about. But other than that, nothing too exciting really happened in either of those places, they were just beautiful cities that I am really happy that I was able to see and experience.
Assisi, on the other hand, was incredible. It is by far my favorite town in Italy, it is located in the Umbria region close to the city of Perugia. It is a small town on one of the hillsides and it is famous for being the hometown/birthplace of St. Francis of the Franciscans. I have been learning a lot about St. Francis and the Franciscan order so I have been wanting to go there since I first started learning about it. It is such a quaint town with so much history and all of the churches and their artwork are simply amazing. Learning about Cimabue(famous Italy artist)for almost 5 weeks now and seeing his artwork which are located in the St. Francis Cathedral in all of my textbooks and then having the opportunity to see it with my own eyes was truly gratifying. After our walking tour, we were able to explore on our own and do our own thing for a few hours so me and 3 of my friends(the girls I'm going on fall break with) hiked up to Rocca Maggiore(the main fortress)to see an areal view of Assisi and the surrounding hillside towns. These views never get old. After that, we loaded back onto the bus and headed back to Florence to start another week of school.
In the meantime, while I'm exploring all of these new places, I still was without a debit or credit card. I went 2 and a half weeks with no money and then when I finally received my debit card, what does bank of america do? They change my pin number on me, so even with my debit card, I still wasn't able to withdrawl money and continued without any cash. Needless to say, I ripped BOA a new one haha.
On the school side of this semester long vacation, I had my first presentation today in my Hospitality Marketing class and it went really well! And this is only the start of the endless stream of midterms, projects, papers and presentations that I have to give next week(midterm week) and the week after fall break. A week from this coming Saturday, I leave for fall break and my semester is over half way done! My time here has gone by so incredibly fast that before I know it, I'll be back in the arctic of CT and then getting my ass kicked in Charleston for diving(currently I am in the worst shape of my life, thanks to Italian food and Nutella haha).
That's all that has been happening here! I am going to Perugia on Friday for the Eurochocolate Festival to pack on a couple more lbs and I will enjoy every bite of it!(Mom, are you freaking out yet?? haha) Well, I hope all is well with everyone back home in CT and Charleston!

Ciao mia familia!