Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.

On our last full day in Siena we decided to go to the museum near the Duomo and walk up some small windy stairs to a viewpoint called panorama dal facciatone. It was a pretty good view of the amazing tuscan countryside. After walking up and back down through the museum we were obviously thirsty so we went to the wine museum for a couple of refreshing glasses of Chianti wine. The wine museum is in an old Medici fortress, which is a pretty cool place to sit a drink some wine.

For dinner we had booked in at a place which had a sign up saying: no pizza, no cappuccino, si maiale, si vino. We didn't need to book though as there was pretty much no one left in Siena the day after Il Palio. We asked the waitress about why there was no one around and she said it is the calm after the storm. We ordered a bunch of things and they just brought them out on platters as well as a pitcher of vino to wash it all down. After dinner we grabbed a take away aperol spritz and wandered down to the campo where they were cleaning up the dirt and gates from the craziness of the previous day.

Panaramo

The little stairwell.

The local Senese papers with the Drago winners.

Tipicci Senese.

Heidi's "cape of modesty" the church made her wear to cover up her
shoulders she was baring like the hussy she is.

The next day we drove to our new accommodation, a BnB in Panzano di Chianti. Toscana is possibly my favourite part of the world in the limited amount of world I've seen so far and Chianti country is the heart of the area I love so much. Possibly because of the delicious sangiovese wine they produce and possibly because I am an easily swayed lush. Along the way we of course stopped at a few wineries to deguste and purchase some delicious Chianti Classico and or Reserva.

One the the wineries we stopped at called Vignavecchia had this awesome lady serving us quite a few wines. She had us pin in a world map where we were from and it was surprising there were so many people from Belgium and Holland. Anyway she gave us an awesome tip for lunch. To go to this beautiful small hill town called Volpaia. So we went and it was indeed beautiful but the menu for this place was even more beautiful. Heidi had a boar ragu tagliatelle and I had a bread soup, both of which are tipici of Toscana. For main a rabbit with truffle sauce which was out of this world. We both used the bread to wipe the plate clean.

I had some propaganda spread throughout the region
to herald our arrival.

Bam, rabbit and truffles.

The menu

Volpaia

The BnB had a pool which overlooked vineyards and the rolling Tuscan hills. It was a pretty good place to setup for a few days. After settling in we went back to the old town to have a look around which took all of >1 hour in the tiny town then swung past the CO-OP(like the habberfield IGA) and grabbed some meats, cheese, tomatoes, oil and bread for dinner.

The BnB

Hard life.

My next favourite thing to a magnum of champagne is a magnum of chianti.

In the morning after a light breakfast we drove to Greve markets. There was a whole pig done as a porchetta loaf, I am not sure how they had deboned and rolled that bad boy up but it was impressive to say the least. It took all of my willpower not to get a panini there as we were saving our appetites for dinner. There was a Castello at the top of a hill so we went up there for a tasting but because we hadn't booked anything there was no places left for a tour or tasting. We went back down to the bottom where their cellar door was and got a tasting there though. The guy at the cellar door couldn't believe his colleagues up the hill were too busy for us....Allora. Afterwards we went to this other winery which had a cellar door. We tried to find it on a previous day but apparently the Castello is owned privately which is closed to the public and the winery is just using its name.

Mmmm wien probe, my favourite kind of probe.

We went home to laze by the pool and have some vino until it was time to go to dinner. Dinner was at a restaurant attached to this butchery run by Dario Cecchini, at the famous "antica macelleria". The guy comes from a long line of butchers and is a propagandist for butchery and food done the Tuscan and or Florentine way. He also has a penchant for quoting the famous Italian poet Dante hence this blogs title. You front up at dinner time for what can only be described as a heady combination of theatrics and meat sweats. When just outside the butchery the young apprentices come outside pouring everyone glasses of Chianti vino, everyone is having a great time talking and drinking, then you are invited inside the macellaeria for "Chianti Burro" or Chianti butter which is really lard and bread. It is so goddam delicious, but I had to just have one piece of bread with it as I knew there was a pile of carne to get through. Meanwhile more vino is brought around by the young butchers. Dario meanwhile is sharpening the knives in the background and setting up the cuts for dinner.

Mosaic of Dario.

The menu, you get all of this.

Fiorentina burro, basically lard.

The man in action

Porchetta, Greve market style.

Dinner is something else, more wine, then a beef tartare. Then more beef, more wine and we continue this process. It was broken up by speaking broken Italian and English to our neighbours at the massive long tables. We were next to another couple of NZers but to our right were Lombardians and the left were from I think Genoa. There was one girl who spoke both English and Italian between about 12 of us and she was kept busy whenever the conversation or hand signs broke down because of comprehension. Every meat course is preceeded by one of the young butchers emerging from the kitchens and holding the massive cut of up, then shouting its name like "BISTECCA FIORENTINA!!!". This of course is greated with more shouting and applause from the crowd and BRAVOS!...It was completely ridiculous. I cannot recommend this experience enough if you are in Toscano. Here is a clip hinting at what the experience is like.