Last Friday, we took our last villa excursion!! *sniffle*Our two Italian professors took us to a region of souther Tuscany, called Val d'Orcia. It's basically the picturesque Tuscan landscape, rolling green hills with little villas perched on top... adorable!!! Unfortunately, it is also a valley that has a lot of wind, so we nearly were blown away all day!!
Anyway, the purpose of the trip was to see several monasteries and go to a cheese factory and do a cheese/wine/olive oil tasting!! Of course, the catch was all of the tours were in Italian!! Eek! We got up pretty early to pile onto a bus and took a 2 hour drive south. It was a long, gorgeous ride to our first stop, an abbey. The abbey is adorable and still active.. meaning there were actual monks living there. We only saw a few of them because they keep themselves hidden when there are people around, I can imagine a group of 20 girls is probably worth avoiding anyway! So we had an adorable old man give us a very lengthy tour of the abbey. We got to see the refectory where they eat and listen to him describe the history of the Dominican monks and the abbey itself.
I tried so hard at first to follow him and understood about half of what he said... but by the end... it was too tough to keep up and I found myself lagging behind, just admiring the famous frescoes everywhere! In addition to the frescoes, one of my favorite parts was the old library which has hundreds of old manuscripts that were actually copied by hand by the monks. Apparently it's a sacred tradition and the monks copy these books in a secluded room away from any other non-monks... so we couldn't see that, but the books were incredible!!!
After we finished with this monastery, we had a traditional Val D'Orcian lunch. Thick pasta called pici with tomato sauce and salad... just a lite lunch in anticipation for the cheese later! Then we drove to another abbey where we had an appointment to listen to the monks of the abbey do their chanting prayers. It was a little disappointing only because there were only 6 monks and I could barely hear them. Then again, I guess they don't perform these chants for tourists, it's prayer...
After the chanting, we had another little old man give us a tour of the abbey. This tour was really fascinating because the entire abbey is made of alabaster stone, so as seen below... the stone glows when hit with light. Unfortunately it was cloudy when we were there, but the guide made sure we could see some of it. He then brought out an oboe and played some religious song for us before we were off again.
Our last, and best stop was the fattoria di formaggii!!!!! YUM!! There's a small town called Pienza where a special kind of cheese, Pecorino, is made. It's only made in this region and it's only allowed to be produced here. Apparently it gets its distinctive taste from the grass that the sheep eat... who knew that mattered!? Anyway, we got a tour of the factory by the owner and saw the process of making cheese and how they preserve the four different kinds hey make. They vary in age from a few weeks to a few years...
Anyway, the purpose of the trip was to see several monasteries and go to a cheese factory and do a cheese/wine/olive oil tasting!! Of course, the catch was all of the tours were in Italian!! Eek! We got up pretty early to pile onto a bus and took a 2 hour drive south. It was a long, gorgeous ride to our first stop, an abbey. The abbey is adorable and still active.. meaning there were actual monks living there. We only saw a few of them because they keep themselves hidden when there are people around, I can imagine a group of 20 girls is probably worth avoiding anyway! So we had an adorable old man give us a very lengthy tour of the abbey. We got to see the refectory where they eat and listen to him describe the history of the Dominican monks and the abbey itself.I tried so hard at first to follow him and understood about half of what he said... but by the end... it was too tough to keep up and I found myself lagging behind, just admiring the famous frescoes everywhere! In addition to the frescoes, one of my favorite parts was the old library which has hundreds of old manuscripts that were actually copied by hand by the monks. Apparently it's a sacred tradition and the monks copy these books in a secluded room away from any other non-monks... so we couldn't see that, but the books were incredible!!!
After we finished with this monastery, we had a traditional Val D'Orcian lunch. Thick pasta called pici with tomato sauce and salad... just a lite lunch in anticipation for the cheese later! Then we drove to another abbey where we had an appointment to listen to the monks of the abbey do their chanting prayers. It was a little disappointing only because there were only 6 monks and I could barely hear them. Then again, I guess they don't perform these chants for tourists, it's prayer...
After the chanting, we had another little old man give us a tour of the abbey. This tour was really fascinating because the entire abbey is made of alabaster stone, so as seen below... the stone glows when hit with light. Unfortunately it was cloudy when we were there, but the guide made sure we could see some of it. He then brought out an oboe and played some religious song for us before we were off again.
Our last, and best stop was the fattoria di formaggii!!!!! YUM!! There's a small town called Pienza where a special kind of cheese, Pecorino, is made. It's only made in this region and it's only allowed to be produced here. Apparently it gets its distinctive taste from the grass that the sheep eat... who knew that mattered!? Anyway, we got a tour of the factory by the owner and saw the process of making cheese and how they preserve the four different kinds hey make. They vary in age from a few weeks to a few years...
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