Italy Trip: Day 3

(Wednesday 20, 2012) In the last couple of days I feel that we have done so much and it is hard to remember what we did because the days feel like they merging together. This was proven today because I couldn’t remember what else we did except tour the winery. Then I remembered that me and a couple other friends decided to take a bike ride to the PLAZA for dinner, but I’ll talk about that later. The winery that we went to was called Vincenzo di Vaira, and while we were there we learned about the grapes that they grow, and also a little about their history. It was crazy to learn about the owner’s daughter and how she is a famous dancer in Italy. Because of that, I really enjoyed their art on their bottles and how it had two butterflies because it symbolized the two sisters dancing as butterflies. After the tour, we were given yet another amazing Italian feast that included a plate of meats, melon, cheese with their own honey (which was my favorite dish), some kind of day old bread and vegetables, and some other dishes that we all phenomenal. This wasn’t my favorite place that we have eaten so far, but delicious regardless. After another one of our (what seems to feel like) free feasts, the majority of all the students wondered into their tasting room to taste more wines. I just wanted to comment on how happy the owners were probably feeling after agreeing to give us a tour of their place because they got SO much business. I was trying to stay in the tasting area for as long as possible (because it was so hot outside), and it seemed as if they had an endless line of students that not only loved their wines for themselves, but they wanted to share it with others. Leila among others decided that they wanted to ship some of the wines that they had tried back home to their families, which I thought was an amazing idea. After the fieldtrip, that night was the first night that we had to get dinner by ourselves. While others were walking around the little town of Forte Dei Marmi trying to find something close and convenient, we (me, Justine, Leila, Aric, Billy, and Kimberli) took the bikes that our hotel provided for free to the local pier. It was about a ten to fifteen minute bike ride to this pier but it went fast because we were all enjoying the beach weather while the sun was just starting to set. Just the bike ride alone was pretty amazing. When we got the pier, we started to have a mini panic attack because there was no more room for bikes on the bike racks so we were forced to chain our bikes together. Thinking back on this now, if someone did this in the States, their bike would have gotten stole within the first 5 minutes of leaving them there. But luckily, the bikes were still there when we got back from our wonderful dinner that everyone loved. (We loved it so much that we went back to the same restaurant on the day that we took the bike tour!)