Friday, June 26 2010

Today would be a quiet day, driving through Chianti country. We headed for Badia Coultobuono (the Abbey of the good harvest). It was a beautiful drive through rolling fields of grapes and olive orchards. What was amazing, was the straight rows of plantings on anything but level hills!
The abbey at Badia dates back to the 11th century. Some of the frescoes are still intact.

We arrived in time for pranzo, which we ate beneath an arbor overlooking the mountainside. It was lovely and relaxing.

We headed for home, thinking that we might stop at a town or two we passed along the way touting archeological ruins and Etruscan antiquities. However, it began to rain, so we went home directly. As we drove through Radda, the rain stopped as quickly as it began so by the time we got back to San G. Anna and Chris thought they’d do some more strolling and shopping.
The rest of us went back to the villa, and it was then that Fr. Douglas decided he really wanted to visit a priest friend in Empoli. As Douglas said, Empoli was only an inch from San G. But knowing how windy the roads are, Lenny instinctively knew it would be more than 30 minutes. So after retrieving Anna et al, Lenny and I drove Fr Douglas to Empoli. At times it seemed we’d never arrive. An hour later, we left him at the train station to be picked up by his friend.
It took another hour to get home, but the upside was that we witnessed a beautiful sunset, and an even more spectacular moonrise – and a full moon at that!!
The rest of our party waited for us for munchies of wine, cheese, olives, bread and crostini and vino. We knoshed till we had our fill and tumbled into bed after a very long day.