Moira and the Almost Famous Painter

We met Moira outside of the lobby of our hotel after a nice lazy morning in our condo. Moira introduced herself and said that the painter was already waiting for us at the winery where we would be having our lesson. We hopped in our little, white Fiat and followed Moira to the Winery. The funny thing was that we realized that we had already been  to that winery the day before. We had seen an open sign and had gone in for a tasting and a tour. We showed up and the painter came and introduced himself and Moira translated for him as he talked to us. He wanted us to pick a spot and then we would paint any view that we wanted to. I have been obsessed with the beauty of the Tuscan Hills, so I chose a spot where we had a great view of the Tuscan hills and Chris decided to paint the winery area which was called Castle Vecchio. I am not a painter and I had Moira tell the artist Leopoldo that, so that he wasn't expecting anything great. Leopoldo spoke through Moira and gave us some pointers as we went. First we started to sketch, and I started by sketching in the hills and then added in some random trees, roads, and wind mills in the background. I though I might be putting in too much details for a beginner painter, but I figured I'd try. I was told that the trees that were far away were too big, so I kept had to make them smaller and smaller. Then he taught us how to make it look like there are rocks in the hills, which I picked up pretty well. Chris of course became an expert painter on his first try, He is so smart he is good at EVERYTHING!! After we finished our paintings and got very sunburned, Moira led us to a table that was set up right outside of the winery that had meat and cheese and wine on it. We drank wine and ate cheese and meat and chatted with Moira for quite a while. It was really nice and we were very surprised as to how long Moira stayed and chatted with us. We gave her a tip and we ended up buying the Rose wine from the winery since I was really enjoying it while we were talking. The winery reopened while we were there and we all went inside and I decided I needed to try a shot of grappa, without knowing what it was. It is apparently hard liquor made from grapes and it was very strong and since Chris was the driver, I couldn't pass it off on him. I finally finished it and then Chris and I decided to head off after we said goodbye to Moira.

After our painting extravaganza we decided to head straight to Monteregionni which is an old medeval village surrounded by a wall. We still hadn't learned our lesson about the Italians eating lunch at 12 and dinner at 7, so we decided we would grab a snack at the walled village. Once we got there at about 4pm or so, There were no restaurants open for food. We ended up getting some chips and some meat and water even though what we really wanted was something more substantial.

Monteregionni is a very cool place, the roads are all cobblestone and when up on the wall you can see an amazing view of the Tuscan hills. The walled city was attached many times and was only every taken over once. They still use the city for visitors and for a medeval festival where people come dressed in medeval garb. It was very cool! After we explored, we decided to head back to our condo to make dinner since we knew we could make something gluten free and weren't sure about the restaurants there.