Friday was devoted to sightseeing in the Chianti countryside outside of Florence with the Swaims and their contingency.  We had a wonderful tour guide, Silvio, who had arranged not only the various winery stops, but also a lunch with a rural farmer, Guido, and his wife and daugher who cooked everything we ate (after growing or raising it on their farm).

Our first stop of the day was the Machiavelli Winery and Albergaccio Machiavelli (Silvio informed us that albergaccio means a bad hotel) . . .

This was Machiavelli's actual kitchen at his winery, which is where he lived while in exile from Florence by the Medici.  On a clear day, he could see all the way to his beloved Florence, and yet was far enough away to be considered properly exiled.

Here we all are on Machiavelli's back terrace.  The building you can see across the way is said to have been designed by Michelangelo.  From the left we are: Cindy, Ryan, Frank, Me, Betsy (note how much she and I resemble each other!), Roddy, Dolores, Kelley, Betty, Dave, Kathy and Tony.

A quick rundown of the party people -- Kelley is the bride and Dave is the groom.  Ryan is Kelley's brother and Cindy is his wife.  Betsy and Roddy are Kelley's parents.  Frank is an old business partner of Roddy's, and Betty is his wife.  Dolores is married to Fred (not pictured), who are neighbors of Betsy and Roddy.  Kathy is Dave's mom, and Tony is her husband.  Also not pictured are Bill, Dave's dad, Jenn, Dave's sister, Jamie, Jenn's boyfriend, Tim, a high school friend of Betsy and Roddy, and his wife, Pat.  I'll point them all out in later pictures.

This is a shot of Machiavelli's backyard.

We then made our way down to the wine cellar . . .

This statue was in a niche at the bottom of the stairs to the wine cellar.

We paused in a little room off the stairs to the wine cellar in order to sample some of the fine '97 Chianti from the Machiavelli Vineyard and some really incredible fresh parmesan cheese (both the aged and new kind -- interesting distinction in flavor between the two).

The wine cellar was incredible -- and quite vast for such a small-appearing place.

A different aisle of the wine cellar.

Betsy in Machiavelli's wine cellar.

The first picture is of a small replica of Michelangelo's David in a niche at the end of one of the aisles of the wine cellar.  The second picture is of a statue of Bacchus found in a niche directly opposite the David replica.

We then went across the street to the Albergaccio Machiavelli, where we all purchased some of the fine Machiavelli Chianti we had sampled earlier.

Here I am under the sign for the Albergaccio Machiavelli.

This is the view from the upstairs window of the Albergaccio Machiavelli.  Kelley was particularly fond of the blue irises, which reminded her of the bouquet she was anticipating for the wedding the next day.

As we were waiting on our deluxe Mercedes Benz bus, Julie spotted this cat cleaning itself at Machiavelli's house.  This will be the only picture of a cat.  In fact, it will be the last picture of any animal on this trip.

Our day-long adventure then continued on to the Badia di San Michele a Passigiano.  It is one of the oldest, still working Benedictine Monasteries.

This is a picture of the bell tower of the Badia.

This is a picture of the cloister of the Badia.

Here Kelley and the rest of us stand huddled under cover from the rain that kept pouring down at various intervals.

This is the Badia's kitchen.  It was at this point that Julie realized that the battery on her camera was running low (the problem with having a new camera that you don't know very well with a battery that seems to last forever, is that you forget to recharge the battery the night before a day-long sightseeing trip), so pictures from this point on had to be rationed.

This is a picture of the entrance turret of the Badia during a rare moment of sunshine.  The small people in the foreground are, from the left, Dolores, Fred, and Frank.

By now, we were all starving and ready for the great lunch we'd been promised on Guido's farm, which is on the land of a tenth century church, which his family oversees for the priest who only comes there on weekends!

This is the Pieve di Sant'Appiano -- the tenth century church for which Guido and his family are the caretakers.

Here is the view from Pieve di Sant'Appiano.  Even on this rainy, overcast day, the view was spectacular.

Stuffed from a true Tuscan farm lunch, we waited for the rain to momentarily stop long enough for us to be able to get back to the bus.  Clockwise from the left: Frank, Betty, Me, Jenn, Jamie, Dave, and Kelley.

Table 2 clockwise, from the left: Tony, Fred, Dolores, Bill, Betsy, Cindy, and Ryan.

We had one more stop to make at one of the Antinori wineries, before heading back to Florence.  By now it was pouring rain and the ground was REALLY thick with mud (Julie almost got stuck in it!).  We all got soaked and muddy, even as we huddled under shared umbrellas and trudged around the winery in search of our host and the promised wine tasting.  The wine was quite good and some of our party members purchased a couple of bottles before we met our bus (which, thankfully, had moved itself to where we were wine-tasting).

Julie's shoes were such a mess from our trek through the mud, that I asked the hotel for a shoe cleaning kit.  They sent up a shoe polishing kit, which I looked upon with glee.  Julie and I cleaned all the mud off her shoes, and then I got at them with some shoe polish -- I've been dying to do this to her shoes for years (yes, YEARS).  After I was done with them, they looked practically like new!

We were still so full from lunch, that we opted to skip dinner.  Instead, Julie, Kelley and I wandered back over to our favorite gelateria and had our daily dose of gelato before returning to the hotel to recuperate from the long day.  After hearing about our shoe polish adventure, Kelley decided to borrow the kit so that Dave could polish some of his shoes.  It seems that shoe polish kit made the rounds that night, for it went through several other members of our party before finally making it back to us the next morning.  I'm such a trend-setter!

Use the links on the left side of the page to see days two, three, and five (including the Wedding Day) in Florence.