First Day in the Val d'Orcia Region

We were late for our orientation at the agritourismo, Cretaiole, but we found out at the orientation that we should expect Italians to be 10 or 20 minutes late for things (like opening shops or restaurants). I guess we have melded into the culture quite well!
We are staying at an apartment in the little hilltown called Castlemuzio that is associated with Cretaiole so we get to enjoy everything that the apartment and the agritourismo have to offer. The grounds around Cretaiole are beautiful and the views are stunning! They have a wonderful garden that we are free to harvest anything that is ripe....lettuces, basil, parsley, onions, carrots and zucchini. I'm in heaven....except it is too early for local tomatoes.


We then got to tour the working farm. What a treat that was! Issabella's husband, Carlo, and his father, Luciano, run the farm. Luciano and his wife only eat what they produce on their farm....they only purchase salt, sugar and coffee. They grow their own grain, produce, olives, grapes (for vino!) and they raise chickens, pigs, and chickens. Luciano and Carlo also hunt. Luciano is a very proud man and he shared the olive oil, pecorino cheese, salami, prosciutto, capicola, wine, Vin Santo and grappa that he produces for the family. It was amazing how good it ALL was. We bought some of his products to take back to our apartment. The olive oil is so green and delicious...we'll have to bring some home. We also got to visit the farm animals (also known as dinner). The pigs were actually pink...I have never seen pink ones, just grey or white. They were extremely noisy when they screeched for food.





































Came back to the apartment and hung out until dinner. I discovered that by syncing my iPad to my laptop, I transferred four vacations-worth of pictures onto my iPad. I thought that was OK since it would be kind of cool if I could show Terry and Marcello some pictures of our family trips. I was not smart enough to realize that it took a lot of disk space. Now I don' have enough disk space for my pictures from this trip! I can't delete the pictures that were synced....only the ones I transfer from my camera. That will teach me to get a new electronic device the week before we leave for a 7-week vacation.

Wandered over to the one restaurant in town for their pizza night (no markets yet to buy food for me to cook). Little Tony played foosball (or foosaball as he calls it) in the bar area while we ate upstairs. The bartender, Paola, played with him as well as another patron with a little girl. The pizza was fantastic, interesting toppings with a nice thin crust. We ended our night early since we had to get up in time to make it to Issabella's tour of the Etruscan tombs.