Ten Days in Tuscany: Farewell Tuscany

So the time comes to bid farewell to Tuscany...to the beautiful village of Castellina-in-Chianti, our Hotel Colle Etrusco Salivolpi, and sadly Eloisa James and the wonderful group of women who have worked together over the past few days.
I rose early to make the most of the day and captured the most beautiful sunrise.

Sunrise in Tuscany across the olive groves

Since the last post, we have filled our days with intense writing followed by a workshop each afternoon. The experience has been amazing and we have all grown in our writing, our knowledge of publishing and social media.

Our final workshop in the gardem

We have worked in the garden, on the terrace and on our balconies when the beautiful weather beckoned us from our rooms. Eloisa even prepared her lessons outside!

Lesson preparation... the setting is inspiring for all

We have made many friends and are pleased that seven of us are going on to Florence today and we have already organized to meet for dinner.

Rose buds on the way to breakfast

A small ristorante on the way to the village where we stopped one evening.

Some more views of the hotel garden for you... the location is wonderful, the staff is superb and the setting is inspirational as you can see from the photos below...

One of the many hotel gardens

The flowers here are so colourful

Our balcony

Great for writing and soaking up the sun

Breakfast and lunch room ..and the occasional workshop was held here but much f the time was spent outside.

Friday night we walked into the village for our farewell dinner together. Eloisa presented us all with a certificate of completion and a special poem summarizing all of the stories we have worked on this week. The meal at the restaurant in the village cannot be described adequately so if you are a foodie... you can salivate at the sequential pictures of antipasto, primo, secondo, more secondo and dessert below!

Antipasto

Secondo

Proscuito and salami

Primo

Tiramisu

Saturday morning we packed up, and Siobhan and Sally left at 6 a.m. for Arizona. Those of us who were left waited for the bus, and then we headed to Florence at 8.30 a.m. After a drive through beautiful countryside where Eloisa taught us how to recognize a Florentine villa by the cypress pines, we bid a sad farewell to an amazing woman. We have all benefited from the rich experiences at the workshop. We also must acknowledge Casja Baldini and her husband,

who organise the workhops. You can find out about next year's workshop here soon...https://www.facebook.com/MinervaEducation.

So Bronwyn, Fiona, Kristen and I headed for our apartment in Florence. We are sure it must have been a palazzo in years long gone. Amazing architecture. The reception office with Mario was quite an experience.

Checking in

Check the key board and the steps!

And then Bronwyn posed elegantly by one of the statues in the foyer.

Foyer of the apartment block

We had many experiences today..but I will devote tomorrow's blog to Florence. We ended the day with a dinner at our apartment with the rest of the group who were in Florence and a spectacular sunset.