What day of your life would you relive over and over again if you could?

We have had a very eventful last 2 days! On Sunday, we planned on renting a car and going to Pisa, but we couldn’t pick the car up until 12:45, so we decided to go to the Da Vinci museum. Before we left, we realized we were out of hot water for the 3rd day in a row. At this point, we know the host knows about this issue and chose to rent their unit anyway. I’m personally unbothered by this because like I mentioned in a previous post, Europe does not have the same amenities/conveniences/expectations as America. The hot water is easily fixed by a maintenance man filling up the boiler so the host agrees to send the maintenance man twice a day. As long as we all have hot water for baths and washing dishes, I truly don’t care how many times this guy needs to come in our unit!

On the way to the museum, we stopped at a beautiful handmade stationery store and of course found things we needed to have. We grabbed cappuccinos and breakfast for Silas and then we bought tickets to check out some of Da Vinci’s inventions.

Da Vinci had quite the engineering mind and it is believed he helped construct the Duomo from a technical standpoint. I had no idea he wrote backwards - partly because he was left-handed and it was easier, and partly to hide his prized ideas from prying eyes.

(Not the real Mona Lisa 😝)

This was a very small and short museum, but great for kids!

After the museum, Traci and I started packing up the kids for our trip to Pisa while Brennan and his dad went to the rental car place. Once there, they found out all too late that as of 2025, Italy enforces an International Driving Permit to ren a car, and it needs to be shipped to your home address weeks before traveling. We tried to find every single loophole and they just don’t exist. It’s wild we could even rent a car online without an alert telling us we needed an IDP! So they headed back to the apartment and we had to change our game plan.

The main thing I was concerned about was our day in Tuscany planned for Monday, where we needed a car to visit the farm/winery I had pre-booked and pre-paid. I started doing my research quickly for a hired car and found one at a reasonable price for 8 hours. Honestly, it turned out better this way anyway because we could all enjoy as much wine as we wanted and not worry about driving in a foreign country!

We walked across the river Sunday night to a new neighborhood and found a bustling secondhand market and a great local restaurant. We indulged in charcuterie, pasta and wine, and gelato on our way home, complete with an opera street performer whose pure baritone voice echoed against the ancient walls as we walked through the old town. I could get used to this.

We woke up today around 7:30 and started prepping for our day in Tuscany. Our driver arrived promptly at 9:15 and we were off. I have to admit, the Tuscan countryside is EXACTLY like the movies (any Under The Tuscan Sun fans out there?). Italian cypress trees lined estates and grapevines filled the rolling hills. We realized this was our first time seeing this much greenery since arriving in Florence, where everything is stone!

We arrive at our first stop - Tenuta Di Spanocchia. Our driver casually mentions he’s been driving in Tuscany for 50 years and this is the first time he’d been to this estate. This makes me a little worried, considering ChatGPT is what recommended the place, but on we go.

Our tour guide’s first question of course is how we hear about the farm and I’m a little hesitant to admit Chat GPT but she mentions it has become common in the last year! She’s originally from Argentina but has been in Tuscany since 2020. A chef by trade, she has interned many parts of the farm. She tells us the farm has been owned by a multi-generation Italian-American family since 1925. The history of the farm, however, dates back to 1225!

The farm is 1100 acres and includes organic vegetable gardens, honey bees, a special breed of pigs called cinta senese, chickens, cows, olive groves and of course, grapevines. There are 8 interns that live and work on the farm, focusing on regenerative agriculture.

The first stop on our tour is the top of the hill where the pigs live, but unfortunately we can’t go into their pasture due to strict regulations trying to prevent swine flu from spreading. These are not just normal pigs, they are cinta senese pigs and are raised on the farm specifically for charcuterie cuts.

Brennan and I opt to climb up into the 800-year old tower and the views were pretty incredible. Also, the bell on the tower dated back to 1492!

The kids and grandparents waved at us from below, perched on an ancient fence!

Next stop was the wine cellar. This farm is an incredibly small producer and doesn’t export. Their style was “natural” wine and they made orange wine, rosé and red wine. I learned today that orange wine is not in fact made from oranges, but made from white grapes fermented with the skin on. The more you know!

As the kids got antsy, the guide walked us down to the chicken coop where they get their fresh eggs every day. Both Silas and Clementine loved watching the chickens and I think the chickens found them fascinating as well 🤣

Finally it was time for the tasting. Our tour included estate-made olive oil, fresh honey, wine and of course - charcuterie from their special pigs!

The orange wine surprised me, it was unique and paired well with the meat. The rosé was delicious but the red wine was my favorite! Silas had his own chair at the table and asked to smell each of the wines. My little wino in training.

As we tasted the olive oil, we also learned why all bread in Florence has basically been terrible since we arrived - dry and crumbly. Our guide told us the territory of Pisa would control the salt trade and would withhold salt from their rival territory Florence. Florence would never have any to put in their bread historically, and they still don’t put salt in their bread now on principle. But even bread made without salt tastes just fine with local olive oil and balsamic!

Finally, it was time for the star of the tour. The charcuterie, or “salumi” was absolutely phenomenal.

We started with the white slices - “Lardo” - NOT lard. This is brined fat and had a great texture, was not chewy at all. The next taste was pancetta - a lot better than any you can get in the states. The third taste was lonzino and comes from the tenderloin area. That was probably my favorite cut. Next was traditional prosciutto - again not chewy at all, almost nutty in flavor and so tender. Then we had traditional salami - luckily Silas didn’t eat all of it before we got to try it! It was the first local food he was actually loving so we didn’t want to stop him. The last sample was soppressata and is basically the entire pig face (excluding snout and ears), cooked with all remaining bones from the pig, seasoned heavily and molded into a sausage-type meat. Definitely not my favorite, but we all tried it.

As we went to the shop and purchased a little bit of everything, we all agreed this stop would be hard to top. It was just such a unique experience with the salumi - and now I know exactly what to look for at Whole Foods the next time I build my own charcuterie board 😉

Our driver had booked us a tour at another winery but on the way we needed a pit stop, so we stopped in the town of San Gimignano. What a COOL TOWN, situated at the top of a massive hill and complete with a skyline of medieval towers.

View of San Gimignano

I wish we could’ve spent more time there, but we only had time for a glass of their traditional white wine (so delish), a cappuccino and to buy some local pici pasta, cinta senese ragu sauce and dessert for dinner, then we were off to our final winery.

View from the top of San Gimignano

It was a storybook drive to our next winery. Once we arrived at Casa Emma, we took in the breathtaking views of the rolling Tuscan hills. Our guide gave a us a brief history, then led us to the terrace where we would have cheese, bread, the estate’s olive oil and balsamic, chocolate, plus 5 estate wine tastings.

This winery was super kid-friendly. The guide asked Silas if he wanted cheese or chocolate first. He says “cheese”, then grabs her hand as she leads us to the terrace. He later tells me that he’s always supposed to have protein first, then treats and then furrowed his brow asking me for reassurance that cheese was in fact, protein.

Protein first!

There may or may not be 3 pieces of dark chocolate in his mouth!

The guide brought us a cute little high chair for Clementine and she was loving sitting at the grown up table.

We indulge in their sparkling rosé, a white that I actually didn’t care for, 2 Chiantis and 1 super Tuscan, which was a Cabernet Sauvignon. We learned that super Tuscan meant the producers were intentionally breaking the regional wine regulations as a form of winemaking creativity. I did not care for the super Tuscan at all, but am becoming quite a Chianti fan! It helped that we tasted the Chianti with local pecorino cheese topped with the estate’s balsamic and olive oil. It definitely brought out different flavors of the Chianti!

I have to say, visiting Tuscan wine country in the off season is really the way to go. We had both estates to ourselves - which helped whenever the kids got too vocal. The guides were also super patient because we were their only guests!

Alas, it was time for our driver to take us back to Florence. Once we got home, I whipped up the pici pasta I had bought - one was plain and one was truffle. They boiled for 30 minutes before they were finally al dente! I mixed the cinta sense ragu with the truffle pasta, and I had fried some pancetta to mix with the plan pici pasta - along with 3 eggs whisked with parmigiano-reggiano. I felt very Italian just whipping up a homemade carbonara with local ingredients! It was all so fresh and delicious.

Anyone who knows me, knows I like to play the “questions” game, where I basically ask a question and everyone has to answer it. My favorite question to ask is “what day in your life would you relive over and over again if you could”? My answer is always my wedding day - I felt beautiful, all my family and friends were there and it was the party of the decade.

I lay in bed by my son as he asks me to “talk about our big day”, so of course I indulge him, recounting the day from the moment he came into our room that morning. As he drifts off to sleep, I think my answer to my famous question officially changes today. It’s really hard to beat a gorgeous day in Tuscany when you’re surrounded by people who mean everything to you, watching your kids laugh as they experience something new, enjoying the local cuisine, wine and hospitality, and just feeling so completely and utterly present.

Ciao for now 💕