We had breakfast again at the hotel, this time with no flies. Then we took the shuttle to parking with a family of two small kids who were very loud. Our next destination was the Chianti region.

On the way to Chianti from San Gimignano, we drove through Poggibonsi, and stopped at the tourist office in Greve in Chianti. A lot of the towns in Chianti had “in Chianti” in their names. The tourist office was really more like a travel agency, and they set people up for pay tours and wine tastings. As we found out then and later, the wine tasting route is not like Napa Valley, where everything was on the road. Rather, most tastings were by tour only.

After the tourist office gave us directions to the hotel, we drove there to drop off our bags. The Hotel Villa Rosa di Boscorotando is very pink from the outside with a nice courtyard fountain area out front. It sits right on the highway, which is a little scary when crossing the street. The pool was not impressive at all, and was dirty with lots of bugs in it. The room was large with high ceilings but had no air conditioning or fan. However, the weather was cool enough that we didn’t need either. There were a few flies and spiderwebs on the high part of the wall. Overall I liked it for the price but Theresa did not feel clean there. The shower had a strange spray, and the room had a very large private terrace. This was Theresa’s least favorite hotel of the trip.

We drove to Volpaia, another quaint medieval town. We had lunch at La Bottega, which was very good, and had amazing views of the valley. We had caprese salad, ribollita, pasta with spinach, nuts and gorgonzola, and wild boar stew with olives.

We had little time remaining until our scheduled wine tasting, and we started to notice it was getting cloudy again. So we took a quick tour of Volpaia, and left for Casa de Villi for our wine tour. On the way it started pouring rain, and there was lighting everywhere. The wine tour was comprised of a quick visit to the wine cellar, and some tasting. It was way too short and since the hostess did not speak much, not that good either. We tasted a Chianti and a blend, then and had a full glass with cheese, salami, and bread. The whole time it was a complete and utter downpour with tons of lightning and big booming thunder.

After the tour we drove around but the rain forced us to go back to the hotel. After napping and getting ready, we drove to Bottega Di Moro and had only a primi each of meat ravioli and pasta w/bacon, and spinach contorni, then a great panna cotta for dessert.