Cin Cin from Tuscany

I can't believe we left the U.S. a week ago today... time is flying! We leave Siena today and take a bus to Firenze (Florence), which we will likely use as a home base to visit more small towns in Tuscany.
Yesterday we visited two such towns... Castellina in Chianti... a tiny little medieval town. It's what they call a wall town, built to keep out attackers. This one also had tunnels.

They would often get attacked on both sides because they were stuck in the middle of fighting between Florence and Siena.
This is city hall:

We also visited a winery called Poggio Amorelli and got a tour from the owner-winemaker, Marco.

My fave was a Chianti Classico. Marco told us his own winery is only about 10% of what he does... his real profession is as a wine taster. He says in 3 hrs, he can do 200 bottles!!!!.. since he can't eat or drink anything beforehand (so as not to affect the taste) he usually does this from 7am to 10am.

Our tour guide, Franchesca and Marco, the winemaker

Our last and longest stop of the day was to a town called San Gimignano (jim-NYAWN-o)... another medieval wall town on top of a big hill.

A super cute Sienese gal named Francesca was our tour guide for the day... and there were 3 couples with us... one from Australia (but they are living in London), one from New Zealand, and one from South Africa. They were all really fun. We met our first Americans at the top of  San Gimignano... Cindy and Jeff from Denver, who were on their honeymoon. They were fun, too and encouraged us to join them for wine tasting, so we did.

While much of the region is all about Sangiovese grapes... San Gimignano is all about whites... the name of the grape escapes me but it begins with a V. They were all very good.  (By the way... we've seen tons of English speakers but we really havent seen any Americans on this trip other than a few at the Vatican).
After our day trip... our love affair with Pici (handmade pasta) continued!!! (technically it is pronounced PEE-chee but with the Sienese accent it is PEE-shee and since pici is their dish, the second form is the way to pronounce it) and it was the best so far. It's a good thing we have to walk so much here or we could never eat so much pasta!! Anway, we went to this adorable restaurant, called Di Nonno Mede (They told us Nonno means grandpa and mede is nickname)  recommended by Franchesca. Outside was this view of Siena and the back of the Duomo (which was the green & white striped cathedral we showed you yesterday)

After our AMAZING meal, sat and talked with the owners... which was pretty interesting since they don't know a single word of English. Some of the waiters helped translate when we ran into issues.

Our Spanish has proved to be very useful bc many of the words are the same or so similar they can figure out what we're trying to say.
After dinner, we did make it to the very end of the free concert in Siena's main square. Unfortunately the photos are on Jaime's camera and we can't seem to get hers to upload. The square holds 50,000 and it looked super packed to us, but estimates were closer to 30,000... and it was 80's Italian pop... we're told the two guys... Lucio Dalla & Francesco De Gregori are kind of like the Rolling Stones of Italy. And speaking of stars... the big news in town... the most famous current pop singer in Italy, Gianni Nanonni, who was born in Sienna and still lives there, is pregnant... she's 52 or 54 years old (we heard both from locals) and she hasn't said who the father is.
The other big story on the news... the heat wave all over Italy... so it's not just us complaining. :) I thought it was hilarious that in the story, as the reporter talked about people escaping to the beach towns and they showed video of sunbathers, they played Katy Perry's California Girls. (By the way...  everywhere you go here, shops, restaurants, etc, they play current American songs... Rihanna, Kesha, Usher, etc.)
One more thing... the mosquitos... zanzaras... are really bad... I think I am up to about 10 or 12 bites and they itch like crazy. I've starting noticing the legs of everyone we see out and about are also covered in bites. The zanzaras are definitely getting their fill of the tourists!!
Well, I think that's all for now. We'll write more when we get settled in Florence.
Oh... and in case you don't know... cin cin is Cheers! You can also say Salute!
Ciao for now!
Jill & Jaime