San Gimignano, Tuscany!

The second leg of the Italian road trip! 

It was my first ever time in Tuscany. Myself and Andy drove from Florence to San Gimignano which is a small, walled medieval town in the province of Siena, Tuscany, north-central Italy.

On our way in the views were just amazing!! I felt like I was entering another world. A world full of countryside, beautiful vineyards and clear blue skies ahhhhhhhhhh.

Heaven :)  

We stayed at 'Relais Santa Chiara Hotel' which is just a 5 minute walk from San Gimignano town centre.

Oh yes, the pool................

Bar service was availble by the pool so many mornings we sipped on cocktails while working our tan. Oh it was fabulous darling ;)

I was really happy with the hotel we had chosen (with the help of TripAdvisor) it was sooooooo pretty and surrounded by stunning scenery! Even though it was so close to the town it was still so peaceful and quiet.

This was our room. It was small and compact but we had our own private balcony which is needed in the scorching heat :)

San Gimignano town!

The pretty town square.

GELATO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YUM

I wanted to try it ALL!!

I had fallen in love with San Gimignano. There are tons of little alley ways where you can discover hidden restaurants and wine bars or you can sit by the main square sipping Prosecco and just watch the world go by.

As we had the car we went on an adventure up into the hills to find wine!!

We came across this little winery ..............

We were greeted by a little old lady who spoke no English. We asked if we could try some of their wine and she happily showed us to a tasting room. It was lovely wine, we also tried their olive oil too - we brought two cases as it was such a bargain.

It was so fun going on an adventure into the hills, there are lots of different vineyards you can pop into to do wine tasting.

We had some fantastic dinners out, there are lots of lovely restaurants to choose from and it was really reasonable too.

The food was just amazing, most nights we started by sharing an antipasti dish, then pasta, followed by meat or fish and then a naughty dessert. We took our time as the Italians do. I think I tried the tiramisu in most restaurants as it's my favourite!! We stuck to the local Chianti wine which was BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!

We didn't have any bad experiences with food, every restaurant really delivered and everything was ten out of ten. It's rare that you get that on holiday.

We had such a great time and we are definitely going back next year!!!!!

www.relaissantachiara.com

Italian road trip! First stop - Florence. Guinea fowl and chocolate pasta anyone?

I have just got back from my adventure in Italy!

I may now be a stone heavier ( I drank and ate sooooooo much) but hey, what a trip!

We flew into Florence and arrived mid day.

Florence was beautiful. There were lots of designer shops and LOTS of tourists but it was still a lovely city to walk around.

After having a little pre evening nap at our hotel  (as you do) we headed out to find a nice restaurant........

It took us a while.

We went on the hunt for one that we had read about on Trip Adviser. We searched for ages, got lost and asked several locals who spoke no English which just made us even more lost.

FINALLY we found it ................and it was closed!!! Very annoying!!

Where to go now?

We had remembered seeing a cool place down one of windy streets so we re-traced our steps and found it!

RESTAURANT GUSTAVINO

It's so exciting discovering a new restaurant, especially when you feel you have found a hidden gem.

We were welcomed in by a very charismatic and friendly waiter who gave us a few seating options. 

The restaurant was pretty full ...always a good sign.

We chose to sit by the open glass kitchen area.

We started off with a glass of Prosecco and asked him to recommend a nice bottle of red for us........

 

 I never usually drink Chianti but as the saying goes - when in Rome! 

I  have been missing out, the wine was BEAUTIFUL and cheap!!! 

Starters!

I went for the grilled octopus with bur rata, crunchy celery and lemon  - DELICIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I really love octopus it always feels like such a treat when I have it.

Andy had the Foie Gras with apricots which he said was great (i'm not a fan)

For my main course I went for a pasta dish the waiter recommended - homemade black tagliolini with sea urchin and pesto sauce - oh wow I totally cleaned the plate!

 It was gorgeous!!

I was very happy.

Andy went for a bit of a wild card - homemade pici pasta with guinea fowl ragout, parmesan cheese and................ CHOCOLATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well I was very excited to try this!!

I try and encourage Andy to order the really unique dishes, so I get to try them hehehe.

It was very rich but I really loved the strong flavours. Andy was full so I polished the rest off :) YUM.

We were both too full for dessert, rarely happens to me, so the waiter gave us two creamy lemoncello cocktails on the house.
Nice touch, lemoncello is one of my favourites.

A sweet end to our first dinner in Italy!

Well we had to get a silly photo, we were on holiday and a little smashed from the STRONG wine.

The waiter waved us off!  

Having a fun waiter really does bring your meal to life.

Great night!

We headed back to our hotel to get a good nights sleep. 

San Gimignano bound tomorrow yippie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TBC.........

http://www.gustavino.it/

LA FROMAGERIE...cheese heaven :)

I felt in need of a little treat this weekend, so me and Andy headed to La Fromagerie.
There are two of these in London, one in Marylebone and one in Highbury.

We went to the Highbury shop....good bye diet! I think a cheese and wine lunch is in order!!

La Fromagerie is one of the BEST cheese shops in all of London with different cheeses sourced from all over the world.

As we walked in it looked very quaint and cosy with an intimate tasting cafe for 6...a few benches for eating. At the back was a maturing cellar.....basically a chilled walk-in cheese room....CHEESE HEAVEN :)

The smell was incredible and I couldn't wait to start sampling all the delicious cheeses and of course swigging it down with a juicy glass of red!!

We sat at a bench by the window and browsed the menu......we ordered a French cheese sharing board and a charcuterie plate (which were both around £8) with some olives, fresh bread, crackers and two selected glasses of house red to accompany the cheese.

There were 5 different cheeses on the sharing board, each one was just beautiful and she explained where they were from and what kind of cheeses they were.

FRENCH CHEESE BOARD

CHABICHOU, POITOU, Goat

Fresh tasting soft, yet quite close textured cheese

COULOMMIERS, ILE DE FRANCE

A velvety white crust housing a mellow rich cheese

SALERS D`ESTIVE, AUVERGNE, Cow

Firm texture with a definite edge when aged, in the style of a cheddar

LANGRES, CHAMPAGNE

Inside is a rich, moist, spicy cheese which should be almost melting

BLEU DE GEX, HAUT Jura, Cow

Threads of blue veins work their way through the creamy, crumbly pate

The charcuterie plate consisted of various hams, one with truffle which I hadn't tried before and also duck rillettes which is a kind of pate made with succulent duck, really tasty and great to spread on warm bread :)

The house wine we had was a French Cabernet Sauvignon and it went beautifully with the cheese.


This is where we sat...

After an hour or so of indulging ourselves and watching the world go by from the window, we had another look around the shop. There are so many delectable treats it's hard to take them all in and also hard not to try and eat everything!

Despite being HUGELY tempted by the all the cakes and pastries we opted for cappuccinos to wake us up from our heavenly cheese coma.

I will be going to the one in Marlebone soon, which is a bigger version of this place, to try more delicious treats.

It was such a lovely lunch and really nice to do something different.
I strongly recommend this absolute gem.
Unfortunately you cannot book so I suggest if there are more than two of you to go to the one Marylebone.

Right I'm off to the gym now!!!

http://www.lafromagerie.co.uk/