This was our big day in Florence. We woke up early to catch our reservation for the Accademia Gallery, which houses Michelangelo's 'David'.We were waiting in line by 8:30 am and were practically the first people to enter the museum.We knew we were on kind of a short timeline, because we had a tour of the chianti wine region booked for 10:15, so we made a bee-line through the museum to where David was. Wow!! What an incredible sculpture this is. What we've realized throughout this trip with all of the museums that we've seen is that there truly is a reason why the famous Renaissance artists are still talked about today…there works are still breathtaking! We spent quite a while just enjoying the beauty of the sculpture. Since we were so early, we had the statue almost to ourselves for the first 10 minutes, until the crowds and annoying tour groups came in. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos.

We quickly breezed through the rest of the museum in record time. I don't think we missed much by going so quickly…David was really the major exhibit of that museum, and to be honest, our knowledge of Rennaissance religious art isn't quite at the level you need to be able to enjoy the other pieces in the museum. Besides, we had a wine tour to get to!!

We had booked this tour because it promised to cater to only small groups and had English speaking guides. I think for both of us this will be one of the top highlights of the trip! When we got to our meeting point, we found our group…only 5 other people plus our guide….all of which were American. Our guide was really great too, an art history graduate who came to Florence to enjoy the art and never left. She was overqualified for her tourguide job, which was definitely to our advantage! We hopped a bus which took us from Florence into the Tuscan hills, about 40minutes outside the city. We got off at Trebbio Castle, a small castle that sits on about 800 acres of land, which has been cultivated with olive groves and vineyards. This castle is the only castle in Italy that is still privately owned by a family. Our tour group had a special arrangement with the family who owns it to let us come in, view some of their private quarters, and sample some of the incredible wines and olive oil that the family makes themselves.Of course Matt and I don't know much about Florentine history, but our tour guide filled us in on the 'colourful' history of this castle. A noble family in Florence called the Pazzi's originally owned this castle. The Pazzi's sought to get rid of the powerful Medici family, who had a great deal of control over the politics in Florence. So, in the castle the Pazzi's, along with the Pope, devised a plan to kill the Medici brothers. This event ended up being one of the greatest conspiracies in Italian history. Anyways, the history of the castle was pretty fascinating, but it was the wine that we were after! We went down into the dungeon, where the wine is stored. We were told all about the harvesting and production process of chianti wine, as well as olive oil. We then were brought up into a large dining hall for lunch. Wow…this meal was amazing! Fresh pasta salad, vegetable salad, and crustini (crusty bread appetizers - drizzled with olive oil, tomato, or olive paste..mmm). We then enjoyed three different wines with our meal and learned how to do a proper wine tasting. Dessert was a delicious dessert wine with almond biscotti that you dipped in the wine…heaven.

Following lunch we were allowed to wonder the castle property on our own and take in the beauty of the countryside. This was such a fantastic day!