mare1203
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2005
Happy Labor Day Weekend, Adventurer's! I finally had the chance to write-up the rest of my trip, which will make my updates much faster! I'm going to try to upload a couple of updates today and tomorrow. Andiamo!
Tuscan Holiday/Pasta Making:
Our next day in Tuscany was the most relaxing of the entire trip. Our itinerary for the day included pasta making at a farm, lunch on the patio (my favorite way to eat), an afternoon on our own, and dinner at a monastery.
We didnt have to be up super early for this adventure, so we headed down to breakfast around 8:00 a.m. and left for the farm around 9:00. Before breakfast my dad and I took a walk up into town. Theres not much there, but its beautiful countryside. The breakfast spread in Tuscany was enough to fill you up. They had fresh bread, which was quite tasty. The staff would come around and bring drinks for anyone who wanted coffee.
Their cappuccinos came out special for everyone. Here is a picture of one!
It was about a 30 minute drive to the family farm, so we all loaded on to the bus. The trip seemed to take a while and I am pretty sure we went around in a few circles. I may not have known where I was, but you just have a feeling when youre lost. Plus, going around in circles is much more noticeable when youre on a bus. Turns out, the bus driver went to the wrong entrance and we had to find our way to the correct one.
For our next adventure we would be heading to a family farm in the heart of Tuscany. Ive noticed most of the itineraries in Adventures by Disney includes some sort of hands-on activity involving food. Ours was no different as we were going to do some pasta making. I didnt have an opinion either way on this activity before we did it, but I ended up enjoying it a lot. It didnt go so well for me, but it was fun to do and I thought it a fun and different way to spend the morning.
We were met at the farm by Sarah, the daughter of the farms owners. She was young, sweet, and had a visible passion both for her farm and for cooking in general. We really enjoyed our time with her. Before going in for the pasta making activity, Sarah gave us some general information about the farm and her family's history with it. Her father and uncle immigrated to the Tuscan area looking for jobs over 50 years ago and found employment on the farm. They worked on the farm until they had the opportunity to buy it.
Today, Sarahs father and uncle, both in their 80s still work on the farm as much as possible. This is her and her uncle, still working hard.
Sarah said she has always had a passion for food and for the farm. She likes cooking from scratch with her mother and has an appreciation for knowing and understand where food comes from. They run a restaurant and make almost all their own food from products raised or grown on the farm. The farm has a vineyard and cows among other working areas. In the early 200os Sarah decided to write a cookbook dedicated to her familys recipes. To her surprise it was picked up by a publisher and has sold over 5,000 copies.
After giving us this overview of our location we were led into a room where we found it set-up for us to make our pasta.
We each grabbed a spot which included a cutting board, a rolling pin, and an apron for us to wear. We then gathered around Sarah for the pasta making demonstration. She definitely made the process look easy.
It doesnt take all that much to make pasta from scratch, but it does take practice and a bit of finesse. She showed us how to roll it out and gave us instructions on how to cut out a few different types of pasta, including fettuccine, ravioli, and tortellini. After seeing Sarah do the demonstration I think we were all thinking pretty highly of ourselves...then we were released to do it ourselves!
I very much enjoyed the pasta making event even though I failed miserably at it. It will definitely take a few more tries to get pasta making right! The activity gave us all a chance to interact with one another in a way we hadnt had the chance to do so far. And by that time we all knew one another well enough to throw some playful jabs in there at the type of pastas people were making.
The guides got in on the fun as well. There was plenty of flour being strewn on the floor, on clothes, and on faces!
As we finished up our pasta we showed off our creations to the cameras. Some people did a really great job with their pasta!
A group shot of us and our pasta creations.
Tuscan Holiday/Pasta Making:
Our next day in Tuscany was the most relaxing of the entire trip. Our itinerary for the day included pasta making at a farm, lunch on the patio (my favorite way to eat), an afternoon on our own, and dinner at a monastery.
We didnt have to be up super early for this adventure, so we headed down to breakfast around 8:00 a.m. and left for the farm around 9:00. Before breakfast my dad and I took a walk up into town. Theres not much there, but its beautiful countryside. The breakfast spread in Tuscany was enough to fill you up. They had fresh bread, which was quite tasty. The staff would come around and bring drinks for anyone who wanted coffee.
Their cappuccinos came out special for everyone. Here is a picture of one!
It was about a 30 minute drive to the family farm, so we all loaded on to the bus. The trip seemed to take a while and I am pretty sure we went around in a few circles. I may not have known where I was, but you just have a feeling when youre lost. Plus, going around in circles is much more noticeable when youre on a bus. Turns out, the bus driver went to the wrong entrance and we had to find our way to the correct one.
For our next adventure we would be heading to a family farm in the heart of Tuscany. Ive noticed most of the itineraries in Adventures by Disney includes some sort of hands-on activity involving food. Ours was no different as we were going to do some pasta making. I didnt have an opinion either way on this activity before we did it, but I ended up enjoying it a lot. It didnt go so well for me, but it was fun to do and I thought it a fun and different way to spend the morning.
We were met at the farm by Sarah, the daughter of the farms owners. She was young, sweet, and had a visible passion both for her farm and for cooking in general. We really enjoyed our time with her. Before going in for the pasta making activity, Sarah gave us some general information about the farm and her family's history with it. Her father and uncle immigrated to the Tuscan area looking for jobs over 50 years ago and found employment on the farm. They worked on the farm until they had the opportunity to buy it.
Today, Sarahs father and uncle, both in their 80s still work on the farm as much as possible. This is her and her uncle, still working hard.
Sarah said she has always had a passion for food and for the farm. She likes cooking from scratch with her mother and has an appreciation for knowing and understand where food comes from. They run a restaurant and make almost all their own food from products raised or grown on the farm. The farm has a vineyard and cows among other working areas. In the early 200os Sarah decided to write a cookbook dedicated to her familys recipes. To her surprise it was picked up by a publisher and has sold over 5,000 copies.
After giving us this overview of our location we were led into a room where we found it set-up for us to make our pasta.
We each grabbed a spot which included a cutting board, a rolling pin, and an apron for us to wear. We then gathered around Sarah for the pasta making demonstration. She definitely made the process look easy.
It doesnt take all that much to make pasta from scratch, but it does take practice and a bit of finesse. She showed us how to roll it out and gave us instructions on how to cut out a few different types of pasta, including fettuccine, ravioli, and tortellini. After seeing Sarah do the demonstration I think we were all thinking pretty highly of ourselves...then we were released to do it ourselves!
I very much enjoyed the pasta making event even though I failed miserably at it. It will definitely take a few more tries to get pasta making right! The activity gave us all a chance to interact with one another in a way we hadnt had the chance to do so far. And by that time we all knew one another well enough to throw some playful jabs in there at the type of pastas people were making.
The guides got in on the fun as well. There was plenty of flour being strewn on the floor, on clothes, and on faces!
As we finished up our pasta we showed off our creations to the cameras. Some people did a really great job with their pasta!
A group shot of us and our pasta creations.