Tuscan Country

Saturday, May 2, 2009. Another leisurely morning on the ship.
We disembarked at 12:30 today to enter our large bug-look-alike coach. Livorno is a walled fishing town and seaport and lacked the glamour of other sea ports. Livorno had been bombed during World War II and all the buildings were rebuilt after that war. It has the smell of petro. We traveled on an express highway lined with the umbrella pine tree which produces the pine nuts for pesto. We thought we were seeing snow on the mountains, but is was the plentiful white marble. Marble is everywhere in this area. While the while marble is the predominate stone, there is also the yellow, grey and black marble in the Tuscan hills.










We did not go to Florence, which is the birthplace of the Renaissance and the capital city of Tuscany. Florence is known for its leather and jewelry.
Pisa is located 12 miles from Livorno in the central part of Italy on the Arno River. We could see the Leaning tower of Pisa (also known as the bell tower) from the highway.
Ken was looking for a Tuscan country drive. So we left the small port town, and headed for views of Tuscan countryside into the beautiful Monte Carlo (Italy) on a hill and the ancient farm and vineyards, the Borgo La Torre, which now offers a restaurant with bed and breakfast at the winery. This small olive orchard and vineyard produces the wine which has made the region famous. The Tuscan countryside has those soft rounded hills and the villages are medieval. There are beautiful silver-green olive trees mingled among the tall dark green cypress trees in every direction.
The vineyard we visited was nestled at the bottom of Monte Carlo. Here the process of wine making and the traditional methods of bottling was explained. After a time of picture taking, we were served a buffet which included the local cheeses, salami and breads. The smells here were heavenly .... that of citrus and fresh air.