Podre Patrignone

About 45 minutes after leaving Florence, we made it to our Tuscan villa, Podre Patrignone.  Ryan and I had spent a lot of time searching through possible villas on VRBO, and knew almost immediately when we found this one.  It looked so beautiful and rustic in the photos online that we couldn't wait to get there and see it for ourselves.  Well the online photos that sold us didn't even do it justice!  It was so amazing there!  Breathtakingly beautiful!  In fact, all of Tuscany was awe inspiring.  Hill after hill of lush greenery and old stone houses.  We could easily spend a lifetime there.  (We even tried to convince the inn takers to let us come work for them).  One of the things we love about this place is that they are extremely eco friendly and really try to be conscientious consumers (as we all should).  They recycle, compost, grow there own herbs and veggies, and when we were waiting for the shower water to heat up, we captured the running water in their watering cans.  Nothing goes to waste!  They will even give you a nice discount on the amazing olive oil that they harvest if you bring them recycled wine bottles.  :)

Our British inn keepers, Simon and Verity, were awesome!  Our room greeted us with a bowl of fruit, a freshly baked loaf of bread, a bottle of chianti (which we could refill from their barrel anytime we wanted for 6 euro), a bottle of "fizzy" in the fridge as a congratulations on our recent nuptials, and fresh peccorino cheese and cured meats.  So sweet!

By the time we got there, it was a little after 5pm on Friday.  We were dirty from traveling for 3 days and exhausted!  So we unpacked our luggage, took showers, poured a couple glasses of chianti and toured the villa grounds.  We were delighted to find some hammocks down by the pool and immediately hopped in one to relax in the cool, Tuscan breeze. Well relaxing became napping and when we woke up 45 minutes later, we were refreshed and ready to eat. 

Since it was already late and we didn't know our way around, we decided to have dinner at a near by restaurant called, Pestellos.  We enjoyed our first of many pasta dishes with truffles - this time truffles and gnocchi.  The truffles served in Tuscany are abundant and delicious!  Nothing like ordering truffles in the States, where you have to hunt for the little black speck in your food.  These truffles were the size of potato chips, and we couldn't get enough of them!  We also had bruschetta, wild boar, and rabbit.  (Yum!  All this talk about Tuscan food is making me yearn to go back and eat!)  The weirdest thing happened on our way back to the villa...  both a wild boar and a hare crossed the street in front of us!  Coincidence???  Clearly.  But still bizarre.  We decided it would be really creepy if our dinner entrees continued to cross our paths in the following nights.  That didn't happen.  But we did get to see lots of random animals out and about in our travels. 

After dinner, we headed back to the villa and crashed.  It was a peaceful and much needed night's sleep, and we knew that we had made the perfect choice on where to spend our first days together as husband and wife.

Check out all the amazing photos of this wonderful villa (bellow).  In my next post, I will tell you all about our travels to nearby Tuscan towns.

The stairs up to our apartment, Caminetto

The fireplace - or Caminetto

View from our bedroom window

View from our cute little hallway window

View from the living room window.  All that ivy outside is Jasmine!  It smelled amazing!!!

View from the hammock

View from the pool

Outside our bedroom window

Looking down from our entryway

The driveway.  It's a kilometer long and very winding road!

Simon and Verity's house.  Lucky ducks.

The koi fish pond

Outdoor eating patio

Ruins?  And BIG aloe!  This place had the most interesting combination of desert succulents and lush green plants.

Path to the pool

Lavender and olive branches.  If we had just gotten married here, we would have had everything we needed!

Pool

The housemaid's living quarters.  That's were Ryan and I want to live.  Verity swears it's not big enough for two, but I think we could make it work.  :)

That's all for now, but I have plenty more pictures and stories to come.  Hang tight!!!