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/

Disappointment, complaints and my Italian adventure....

I am sorry I have not been able to post anything for a few weeks now.

I was planning to write about a hotel I stayed at recently in The Cotswold's. Andy and I went there for a spa weekend (to escape London).

However the experience was not what I had hoped and due to bad service and lack of customer care we both left feeling disappointed.

I complained to the hotel (to remain anonymous for now) and they dealt with it immediately. They apologised AND offered us a complimentary stay!

Everywhere deserves a second chance so I will be posting all about my stay once we have returned.

I am all for complaining. If you are left feeling unhappy and disappointed with an experience you have paid for then speak up!

Another let down - I  wanted to continue my search for 'The Best Sunday Roast' so I went to a pub, with some friends, that everyone had been talking about.
It had great reviews and the roasts were meant to be huge! As you can imagine I was very excited :)

When we arrived we sat down and ordered a few pints - standard Sunday tradition, the only day I allow myself to sink pints.

After we had looked at the menus and decided what we wanted the waiter came over and told us they had run out of the beef!! Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That was what we all wanted! I mean it's the king of the roasts!

I couldn't possibly write about this place now with no beef roasts! That would be like writing about a candy shop with no sweets!

To be fair it was 3pm so I guess we should have gone earlier but we always eat lunch on Sunday around this time and no where else had run out before.

I ended up going for the chicken, it was good and the portions was huge, but it wasn't beef : (

I will be going back soon to get my beef!! TBC

So, you see it has been tricky to post about anywhere exciting recently.

HOWEVER................... I am off to Italy this week whooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I will be visiting Florence, Tuscany, La Spezia and then finishing up in Ivrea.

Ahhhhh pasta, wine, ice cream, coffee, more wine - I am coming for you :)

I will be taking lots of photos and documenting all my adventures.

I cannot WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

'Harvey's Point Hotel' Donegal, IRELAND. Stunning weekend away!

I had never been to Ireland before so you can imagine how excited I was when my friend, Aisling, told me her wedding would be in Ireland!

Great!!

Whooooooooooooooo a weekend away out of London!!!

Flights were only £80 return and me and Andy decided it would be a nice idea to hire a car so we could see as much as possible during our 3 days there.

The wedding was being held in a small town called Donegal at a hotel called 'Harvey's Point'.

WOW, I checked out the website immediately and it looked stunning!

I was so excited!

DONEGAL bound!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We flew from Stansted and it was only one hour, really quick and painless.

When we touched down we collected our little car (Ford Fiesta) and hit the road!

I wish this part had been as easy as our flight!

When we picked the car up the hire company had run out of bloody sat navs so it was back to old school map reading!!

We thought to ourselves - hey this will be a good challenge for us, it can't be that hard............

Andy was driving and I was navigating.

Oh I forgot to mention our flight to London that morning was at 7am, we had to wake up at 4.30am so we had both had about 4 hours sleep!
Not the best recipe for a 2 hour long car journey, in Ireland, with no sat nav.

We got lost.

Apparently it was my fault...........I think differently.

Note to self - ALWAYS GET A SAT NAV.

So 2 hours and 40 mins later, we saw this............

Yessssssssssss we found it!!!!!

Then we saw this .................

Driving up to the hotel was beautiful, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh such a nice reward after our stressful car journey.

The Hotel

The surroundings were just stunning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Right, we arrived at 11am and the wedding started at 2pm so we had a good 2 hours for a nap. I of course needed an hour to get ready!

We couldn't wait to hit the pillows!

The bell boy took us up to the room..................an executive double.....................

It was huge!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You should have seen the smiles on our faces!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bed time - we needed to re gain energy for a day of drinking ahead, this was an Irish wedding and they can sure drink!!
After our power nap we swanked up and hit the wedding!!

It was such an amazing day in picture-perfect surroundings :)

If you are thinking about going to Ireland for a long weekend away this place is seriously romantic!!!!!!

The view from the cocktail bar.

Whilst we were staying at Harvey's Point we visited Rossnowlough beach, although it was windy the sea was warm!

On our last day we decided to drive to Slieve League Cliffs - the highest sea cliffs in Europe!
Bring it on!!

It was about a 1.5 hour drive but sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo worth it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is what we saw on our way to the cliffs.

So beautiful.

After a steep drive up...........we reached the cliffs!

Wow!! What a view!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was so peaceful up there we didn't want to leave.

FANTASTIC weekend away from the big smoke!!

If you fancy getting away, consider Donegal! Flights are cheap as chips and the scenery is gorgeous PLUS there are tons of great seafood joints!

http://www.harveyspoint.com/