Podere Campiano

We caught the overnight ferry from Split to Ancona in Italy. It was a great trip especially since we splurged and got a reasonable size cabin with a porthole. It’s true the porthole was small and you could really only see a glimpse of about 1 square metre of water but we felt important!

We caught the train to Bologna and spent a frustrating afternoon in very hot weather getting Italian sim cards for our phones and my IPad. Given we are doing quite a bit of driving being able to use google maps on the IPad is desirable. There’s a bit of a theme running here if you remember we had trouble achieving technical connections in Paris. This time we struck 2 helpful Pakistanis who wanted to talk cricket as well as help us. After 3 hours or so our phones were connected and we also had data downloads. Not so for the IPad which was not done satisfactorily until in Siena 2 days later. It now works well and given we’re travelling on some small roads, driving on the right etc it’s very helpful. The Google maps voice even talk to us - we call her Sybil. She can be very irritating at times but generally we're happy to have her around. The screens on our phones are too small to navigate well. However we did use them to successfully make it to Podere Campriano in Greve in Chianti where we are staying for a week.

This is an organic vineyard just above the beautiful town of Greve. We chose that because it is a lovely area and also because it’s midway between Siena and Florence, both of which we intend to visit.

We were warmly welcomed by Elena and her family. Elena is the only one who speaks English but her husband and parents and Zoto - the 10 month old Berenese Mountain dog have been equally welcoming. 
Nona below has been in charge for a few days while Elena and family attend a wine expo. Her philosophy seems to be that if she talks Italian louder and slower we will understand and it sort of works! With lots of Grazies and Pregos (thankyou and your welcome) thrown in!

We asked for a bottle of their wine when we arrived and thought we’d have a drink after a long day. In no time they appeared at our door with a plate of bread, cheese, salami and pastrami to go with the wine.

Breakfast is served in the cellar amongst the wine they make themselves on the property.

Happiness is geting the dirty clothes washed even if it's by hand!

These roses looked so lovely after a slight shower of rain. The first few days were very hot and the swimming pool was very welcome. Look at the view from it.

I can't believe this woodpile. Imagine stacking it! They make their own olive oil as well as wine.

                           Have a look at the sunset from by the swimming pool.

We drive through this lovely avenue to get out of the property. We only realised that it was one way when an Italian screamed at us after about 3 days of doing it - meeting no other cars that I remember. Then we saw the arrow. Well it's not so clear!