Yesterday I went with the FlorenceForFun group to a town in the Chianti for a hike and wine tasting. We ended up in the town of Panzano which is about 1/2 an hour outside of Florence. We started inside the small town and started our hike from there.Our hike in total lasted almost 3 hours and was exactly what it was called... a hike! We hiked up and down the hills in Chianti. Beautiful, but wow, was it tough at times. We got our shoes full of mud walking on the trails between the grape and olive tree fields. It was so beautiful. The color of leaves on the trees was just great. I felt pure joy (when I didn't feel like dying from all the climbing) admiring the view.
I was also lucky enough to taste an olive right off the tree! Have any of you ever done this before? Well before you think, wow, she is so lucky.... try it! lol It was the most bitter, horrible tasting thing I have ever put in my mouth. I have to say the taste of this olive almost compared to me trying Vegemite (an Australian spread. Like Nutella or our Cheese Whiz but WAY worse tasting). Anyway, the olive taste stayed with me for about 3 more hours. We were eating lunch and I could still taste the bitterness in my mouth. YUCK!I was also lucky enough to witness the harvesting and the production of the olive oil. As we walked past a farm yard, we seen a few family members out in there yard picking the olives off of the trees. Very cool. I was really hoping to try to help out picking this year with some farm, but I don't think I will have the opportunity to. So, instead I admired from afar and took a few pictures. ;)
Once we were done our hike we ended up at a olive plant were we were lucky enough to see them actually turning the olives into oil. SO COOL! It actually didn't take very long at all and then for lunch we got to try some oil, fresh from the press! It was really good.By the time we finished lunch and made our way back to Florence we had been out in the Chianti for over 8 hours. It was overall a very good day. Exhausting... but good.
Your photo of the Tuscan vineyards is gorgeous! Makes me think of the start of a poem I was once forced to memorize: "Season of mists and yellow fruitfulness..." Too bad you couldn't help out with a harvest. I went to a port tasting last week & they showed this video of squashing the grapes with your feet - looked messy but fun!
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