A Whole Bowl of Parmesan Cheese

Today was our third excursion (AHA Macerata travels as a group on some of the weekends, mostly to local places, but we'll also go for three days to Florence and three days to Rome), and it was a cold, long day. I did, however, get to check several things off my bucket list!

We started the day at 8 AM, took our charter bus to San Ginesio, a medieval town just under an hour away. Medieval towns in Italy are all situated on hills, so we had a great view of the countryside and the mountains on our way up there. We did a short walking tour through the town and the town's main church, then stopped for a quick snack. I had a hot chocolate - I'm not sure what the secret is, since in America I don't really like hot chocolate, but here they could give me an IV drip of the stuff. So good. Then we headed to a garden with a wonderful view of the Apennine Mountains. Filiberto had us stop by an architecture firm to introduce us to his old friend -- the very architect who happens to be working on securing the sunken Italian cruise ship (so it won't slide and crash, spilling a ridiculous amount of oil into the ocean)!  Italy is a small world.

Next we headed to the Abbazia di Finastra, which I absolutely loved. It was a monastery built in the 1100's, and has had several owners, part of it was made into a private palace (rough life), and now it's a monastery again (yes, I saw real monks wandering around) with a convention center in the former palace. It was so peaceful and quiet there, and so beautiful. Plus, it was built in the 1100's. They didn't even know about America yet.

Outside of the church part of the Abbey, look at the beautiful rose window (the big circle one)!

We had lunch on the grounds - pasta con ragú, french fries (my first fried food in what feels like forever), salad, pork chops, chicken, sausage, bread and wine.

Then we headed to Urbs Salvia, my absolute favorite thing we did all day. It's an ancient Roman town under excavation, and they opened it up just for us (since it's January and there aren't that many tourists.... seeing as it was below freezing all day). We got to go into the Ampitheater and walk around the ruins of the ancient temple, plus our guide took us to see the remains of a Roman road. And when I say we got to "go into" and "walk around" these places, we literally were allowed to just climb on them, touch them, walk through them just like they were meant to be used. The Classical Archaeology minor in me was practically salivating.

Whooaaaa. There used to be gladiators here.

Our final stop of a very long day was a winery, the Cantina Sant'Isidoro. It's a relatively new place, as the vines were only planted in 2005, but they have won several awards for their Isidoro Oro white wine, made with Pecorino grapes. After showing us the fields and the old palace (now a bed and breakfast), we got to have a wine tasting (my first!). First we tried the Isidoro Oro, which I liked. Then we tried the Montolmo, a red wine made with Sangiovese grapes, which was my favorite red I've had so far. Here's what I learned about wine: white wine can actually be made from red grapes too, because what you do is remove the skin (when and how this happens, details were vague and translated...). Which does a couple of things, it allows you to drink it quicker (year wise, not glass wise), because the skin has the tannin in it (which needs time to smooth out), but it means it doesn't last as long. Unless it's a "reserve" white wine, you should drink it within the first two years or production or not at all (I'm thinking you guys may need to clear out the bar, mom and dad). Red needs more time to smooth out, because the skin is left on, one of the differences in taste between red and white. For example, our bottle of red was produced in 2009, spent a year in a barrel, then has been in a bottle since then, until we drank it tonight. Also, when you are looking at a red wine, if it's more violet, it's a younger wine, while a browner wine is older. I also discovered that the free bread and cheese that comes with your wine at a wine tasting to cleanse your palate can also double as dinner. But that practically a whole bowl of parmesan cheese makes your tummy hurt.

Isidoro Oro -- "straw yellow with gold highlights" (apparently).