Welcome to Z Michelson Travel Podcast

Speaker 1 0:07

Welcome to the Z Michelson Travel Podcast, where every journey is a story waiting to be told. I'm your host, z Michelson, and I'm so excited to take you on a ride through the world's most incredible destinations, hidden gems and unforgettable experiences. Whether you're a seasoned traveler or just starting to plan your next getaway, you're in the right place. Each episode, we'll be diving into everything from must-see landmarks to off-the-beaten-path treasures, speaking with locals and travel experts and sharing stories that will inspire your next adventure. So sit back, relax and let's wander the world together, one destination at a time. Are you ready? Let's get started.

Speaker 2 0:56

This is Zee Michelson here, and I am here again with Diana. We are still in Italy, we are still with Celtic Tours. And, diana, where are you taking us today?

Speaker 3 1:05

Oh one of the most beautiful regions in Tuscany, Chianti.

Speaker 2 1:12

Isn't that the wine? Chianti, yes, chianti. The wine.

Speaker 3 1:16

That's what they're known for the region, the wine region. Yes, it's just absolutely spectacular the sights, the views, the wineries, the vineyards absolutely beautiful.

Speaker 2 1:27

Now this is close to where you're staying Correct.

Speaker 3 1:30

It was about an hour, about an hour, but it's going uphill because you're going up through the hills of. Chianti. So the views are spectacular. Let me tell you our motor coach driver. We got up and actually stood and clapped for him after we got to the top of the hills in Kiyotii.

Speaker 3 1:47

Big bus. Skinny little roads, yeah, skinny little roads, yes, and some of them there was only room for one, only room for one. So it was absolutely. We just again stood up and then we had to clap because the roads were so, so small.

Speaker 2 2:00

I understand that.

Speaker 3 2:02

So we got up in the morning and, of course, had a beautiful breakfast. At what place were you at again, cambrula, casa Grande, right in the heart of Tuscany, and again, we stayed in one location the entire trip, which is nice. It was very nice, yeah, because we didn't have to move from place to place to place, Right, so you can unpack, yep, yep. And then, of course, we went through the Chianti Hills and then we stopped in Greve, in Chianti, greve in Chianti.

Speaker 3 2:30

And we stopped at this castle, this beautiful castle. Yeah yeah, it was called Castle di Verrazano, verrazano, verrazano, like the bridge in New York. That's exactly what it is.

Speaker 1 2:43

I was just going to tell you the bridge was actually named after Mr Verrazano Verrazano.

Speaker 3 2:45

Like the bridge in New York. That's exactly what it is. I was just going to tell you the bridge was actually named after Mr. Verrazano. Oh yeah, so he was actually a traveler and he was an explorer and he discovered New York and all of the East coast of the United States. So, that is the reason why the bridge is actually named after him what a little piece of history that I didn't know until I got there.

Speaker 2 3:05

But I'm sure the castle looks nothing like the bridge. No, no.

Exploring Castle di Verrazzano

Speaker 3 3:09

It was just spectacular, just stunning, stunning. And again, it's right in the heart of Chianti and it's between Florence and Siena, so kind of right in the middle of the two cities. And the castle, of course, was the property of the Verrazano family in the 7th century and I know the Verrazano who was the navigator and the discoverer right, so his family is the one who actually bought the castle and then started, you know, built the castle and renovated the castle and so on and so forth.

Speaker 2 3:39

So now did you, were you actually able to tour the castle?

Speaker 3 3:42

Oh yeah, yeah, we had a beautiful tour of the castle and I'm going to tell you a little bit more about that, because there's a lot of history behind the castle as well, because the Verrazano family does not own it any longer.

Speaker 2 3:55

But the Verrazano family built it.

Speaker 3 3:56

They actually built it correct. But then the Florentine family actually they seceded and actually took the property, because the Verrazano family, after the death of the last descendant in 1819, actually took over the property. So they kept the property until 1958. Oh, and now the Cappellini family owns the property. They restored it back to its original almost as original, of course it's a little more modern restored it back to its original, almost its original.

Speaker 1 4:25

Of course it's a little more modern Right.

Speaker 3 4:26

So they restored it and restored all of the vineyards and now are making their wines there. So I'm assuming they make Chianti, all kinds of wines.

Speaker 1 4:37

Yeah, they had like six or seven because we did do a wine tasting. Of course we did.

Speaker 3 4:40

We did a complete wine tasting, and so, of course, we got there. We met our guide. Our guide took us through the property, took us up to the very top to oversee the Chianti Hills, where all the vineyards were. All the views were spectacular, absolutely spectacular.

Speaker 2 4:57

And again, celtic tours put this all together. Yes, they did. Okay, well, that's good, that's good to know that they put it all together. And when you're going on these trips, a lot of people they don't want to worry about where they're going. When they're going, they just want to get there and then say, okay, take me to wherever.

Speaker 3 5:16

Yeah, they just want to be taken care of, that's nice, they don't want to have to think Exactly, you're on vacation. Yeah, exactly, you're on vacation. Yeah, you're on vacation. You don't want to have to think and we do all the thinking for you, we do all the planning for you, we do all the planning.

Speaker 2 5:27

I like that, there it is, and travel advisors should know that Celtic Tours will also work with travel advisors so their guests, their clients, can have a good time as well. Yes, yes, now you're here in Chianti and you're here at the castle and you're looking at all the vineyards and you toured the castle. How big is the castle?

Speaker 3 5:50

roughly. Oh goodness, I couldn't even tell you.

Speaker 1 5:52

It's pretty large.

Speaker 3 5:53

I have no idea if there's any rooms in it, because basically what we saw was the vineyard. He took us to, obviously, where all the wine is stored, where it ages. He showed us all the barrels. He talked about the aging of the wine is stored where it ages. He showed us all the barrels. He talked about the aging of the wine. He went through the entire process of the winemaking, right, and he even took us to their private little. It was a room, probably, I would say maybe an eight by eight room, and it was a private room for the owners and they had their private stock up there, Right, and I'm like are you sure you wouldn't bring in all these people into their private stock of wine? It was a huge stock.

Speaker 3 6:27

Yeah, so now I'm going to see. If I remember correctly and it wasn't locked up, which was even more Right.

Speaker 2 6:33

Now the Cappellini family owns it. Now, Correct, Okay, so I did get it all actually right there. Okay, so the Cappellini family. Are they living there on the property?

Speaker 3 6:43

You know, they didn't mention if they are actually staying in there. They own it, they restored it, it is their vineyard, the gardens are beautiful. They didn't show us any of the residential homes, the residential apartments. I'm sure there are. I'm sure there's some residential, but there's no place.

Speaker 2 7:00

I don't believe that you can stay there and ride. They don't take guests. Correct, okay, correct, because it's more of a visit, a tour Right, sure, the vineyard, see the castle, yep, learn the history, learn the history Behind everything. Yeah, and do some wine tasting, and yeah, do some wine.

Speaker 3 7:14

So the gardens again, they were just beautiful. They had lemon trees, fresh lemon trees. The lemons were actually already in. They were there and looked like they were ready for picking, which was curious Do they do the limoncello Of? Course they do the limoncello they're lemon trees, limoncello. So, of course, then they sat us down, we did a wine tasting. We tried six I think it was six different types of wines, and then, of course, the very last one, the grappa, which.

Speaker 1 7:46

I think I told you was one of our last.

Speaker 2 7:48

The dessert, the dessert wine, yeah.

Speaker 3 7:50

We had the grappa, but they also gave us little platters of food, oh, and so so little nibbling bits while you're tasting the wine. I felt like it was little. It was actually quite a bit, because each of us got our own little plate and we had bruschetta on there. We had salami, like a boar's head salami. We had head cheese, which I'm not a fan of, but that's okay. I traded that for some other cheese.

Speaker 3 8:16

Yeah, head cheese is an acquired taste. So all these different little things that you can snack on and nibble on and, of course, some bread with their fresh olive oil, because they do have their own olive oil there. Yeah, so it was really really fascinating. So it seems like almost a relaxing day Very.

Speaker 2 8:33

You know, go visit, have some wine and just kind of kick back and enjoy the site.

Speaker 3 8:39

Yeah, so how long were you there? We were there probably about three hours total. I mean, the wine tasting took quite some time. Oh, you know, it was very slow. They introduced the wine, gave you a pour, let you try it, Of course you know talked about the wine and then you went on to the next one and the next one. So it was a fast process. And again, how many people were there?

Speaker 2 9:07

We had a total of 27, including myself.

Speaker 3 9:08

Oh, wow, yeah, so that's, that's quite a bit yeah.

Speaker 2 9:10

They were actually serving a lot of people that they were.

Speaker 3 9:12

They were and it was beautiful setting. Also, when you went into the tasting area the tables and the setting it looked like they had just done renovations to this part of the area. It was just very beautiful Lots of lighting and the view. They had huge windows, so the view was Chianti. And again you were there roughly late spring. Yeah, I was there in April, so that was nice weather. It's beautiful weather, beautiful weather, roughly late spring. Yeah, I was there in April, right, so yeah.

Wine Tasting Experience

Speaker 2 9:40

So that was nice weather. Oh, it's beautiful weather, beautiful weather, yeah. So now where did you go after that, though?

Speaker 3 9:48

Well, I mean after that, after we did all of the wine tasting and a lot of us were a little, you know.

Speaker 1 9:55

Time for a nap Time for a nap Time for a nap.

Speaker 3 9:58

So we all went ahead and jumped into the motor coach Right and we hit start and head back to the villa, but before we stopped before we got to the villa we stopped at this little town called Radam, r-a-d-d-a, r-a-d-d-a, and right in the Chianti Hills, oh, and it was absolutely quaint little town, little shops, few little restaurants. Wasn't a very, very large town, right A lot of hills, so there was a little bit of walking, a lot more walking. So we stopped in there.

Speaker 2 10:34

It was just a charming little town, wasn't real, real hungry, but of course I had to stop for a glass of wine, because you know, once you're cute, once you start drinking, you gotta keep drinking, right?

Speaker 3 10:41

Just keep going, keep going, keep going. So we stopped for a glass of wine and I found this little cave bar. Oh, a cave bar. It was actually inside the walls of the town. It was inside like the rock wall.

Visiting Charming Radda Village

Speaker 2 10:55

Did they give you a history behind? Why it?

Speaker 3 10:57

wound up in the cave. No, no, we didn't get a history or anything. We didn't have a tour at this, it was just a little stop along the way. We had decided that we would stop along the way.

Speaker 2 11:11

So that was very nice. I mean now, I'm sure not everybody wanted to go into the cave bar. Some people were wandering around the town.

Speaker 3 11:18

I just went, it was were wandering around the town. I just went, it was just a couple of us, you know everybody else was wandering the town, going into the little stores. There was a couple of cafes, and we were only there about an hour, we didn't stay very long.

Speaker 1 11:28

Just to wander a little.

Speaker 3 11:30

Just a little stop so you know we could see another part of Chianti. So did you find out any of the history behind that little town? Not, really, not really Because, again, like I said, there wasn't a tour guide or anything like that. So, yeah, I didn't know too much of the history but I did enjoy sitting there. It was nice and cool because it was a little warm. It was probably in the you know warm. I'm a Florida girl here. So it was.

Speaker 3 11:55

It was probably in around the high seventies that day so it was kind of nice to go into that nice little area.

Speaker 2 12:02

Right, particularly, with the cave probably being cooler. It was much it was much cooler.

Speaker 3 12:06

Yeah, and I love the ambience and I had to get some olives, of course you know, fresh olives, marinated olives.

Speaker 1 12:13

Amazing amazing with the wine.

Speaker 3 12:16

So it was just a really really good day. And then we headed back onto the motor coach after about an hour. And then we went ahead and went back to the villa and freshened up and a few of us met downstairs and we decided to walk to the city center of the name Valdonado. Okay, and that's the name Valdonado. That is the city that the Villa is in. Right Villa Casa Grande is in. We found this little pizzeria. Oh, okay so this time it's probably around seven o'clock.

Speaker 2 12:46

Right, right and then, it's later.

Speaker 1 12:47

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 12:48

So it's about seven o'clock, right. So we went ahead and went to the pizzeria, a couple of us, and you said it's walking distance. Oh, it was walking distance, it's just a couple blocks from Villa Casa de Mar, that's nice. That's very nice, very nice, very nice.

Speaker 2 13:08

Now you said at the beginning of the tour, when you went to Chianti, that the tour guide met you there.

Speaker 3 13:15

Is that correct? Did I get that right? Actually, when we got to the castle, there was a tour guide right outside the castle, and he's the one who gave is the tour of the castle.

Speaker 2 13:22

Oh nice, okay, and they were waiting for you.

Speaker 3 13:25

Yes, yeah, they were expecting us. Yeah, because Celtic Tours went ahead and took care of everything.

Speaker 2 13:29

So they were expecting us.

Speaker 3 13:30

They knew exactly how many people were going to be there. And it was a very nice tour.

Speaker 2 13:34

The day sounds. Even though you were doing a lot of walking, it sounded very relaxing. It was we drove through the Chianti.

Speaker 3 13:44

Hills.

Group Dinner and Villa Life

Speaker 2 13:44

Chianti Hills and it was kind of relaxed. You know, you went into the castle, you kind of toured the castle with your tour guide and then you were treated to see all of the hills with all of the vineyards that have been replenished over the years through all the different families that own the castle and had a little bit of a snack while you were drinking your wine.

Speaker 3 14:08

It was a really relaxing day. I mean, there wasn't a lot of walking, not like in some of our previous days where we were constantly walking from one location to another, so it was a little more relaxed day, which is kind of nice, yeah, I think we all really just enjoyed that day of relaxation.

Speaker 2 14:26

Almost like a little breather.

Speaker 3 14:27

Yeah, because we had so many days where we just did so much walking, especially like the first day, right.

Speaker 2 14:34

We were very busy.

Speaker 1 14:35

Walking up and down the hill.

Speaker 3 14:37

So I think it was just nice and relaxed and, again, the views were just spectacular. The hills were gorgeous.

Speaker 2 14:45

Hills and then to see that little town. I always love to see the little towns because a lot of times you don't see that on tours. Yeah, you know, you go from big place to big place to big place. The little towns were so much fun yeah.

Speaker 3 14:59

And it was. It was just such a great little town. Again, it was just a quick little stop, you know, along the way.

Speaker 2 15:07

People are probably saying were you able to get by speaking English? Oh, absolutely, Absolutely.

Speaker 3 15:12

Yeah.

Speaker 2 15:12

So that's a good thing to know. Now, when you wound up back at the villa and then everybody kind of went down to the town center and had some pizza, what was the pizza like?

Speaker 3 15:22

Well, let me tell you, and different regions of Italy have different pizza, so like in Sicily, it's thicker.

Speaker 2 15:31

You know, they have a thicker crust, you know.

Speaker 3 15:33

And then in this particular region it is a thinner crust, it's a very thin crust and then towards the end it's a little thicker Right and the pizza is very different. They just put a little bit of sauce on it and then, if you want, like prosciutto, it's big pieces of meat that are topped on top of it If you want cheese. It's not, you know, sprinkled shredded cheese. No, it's big gobs of cheese that are on your pizza, right? So it's just a completely different pizza than what you would expect here.

Speaker 2 16:05

But it sounds delicious. Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah. So now everybody's hanging out at the town. What did you do?

Speaker 3 16:12

Well, we went like I said the first, there were just a few of us in the pizzeria. And then, the next thing, you know, a couple more came. The next thing, you know, a couple more came Before. Before we knew it, our group was there and we were laughing and having a lemon channel and before I knew it, it was 11 o'clock at night, oh yeah, and we had an early start the next day. The next day was a big day, a lot of walking.

Speaker 2 16:36

The next day. A lot of walking the next day.

Speaker 3 16:37

So I'm glad that this day was really relaxing for us.

Speaker 2 16:39

Okay, so are you going to tease me a little with what's coming on day six? Let me tell you you know what it is?

Speaker 3 16:47

A famous statue. A famous statue. Yeah, we're going to a place where there's a very, very famous statue. Okay, there's a lot of famous statues in Italy, yeah there are.

Speaker 2 16:57

It's a big city. Okay, the big city, the big city the famous statue. And it took all day. Oh, so that day.

Speaker 3 17:05

Day six is going to be an all day. It was an all day adventure.

Speaker 2 17:11

Yeah, so you managed to get home late that day to the villa on gay five and everybody kind of I can't tell you that.

Speaker 3 17:22

You know, one of the things that I really, really love about doing these chores is that we all really came together as a group. We enjoyed each other's company. We got to know each other as a group. That's so nice and it was really nice. And for those who didn't want, there was a lot of people who just went to bed, you know, and that's fine, but it wasn't like they were excluded from the group.

Speaker 2 17:45

Right, we still. If they wanted to go, they can.

Speaker 3 17:47

Exactly, they can do what they want we give everybody enough free time to do what they want to do. I think even a couple of the ladies went and did a massage at the spa, right, you know, after they got back. So it was really, really nice and a couple of people just went to the restaurant there at the Villa, because there was a restaurant. So you just go to the front desk and tell them you want to have dinner. They'll make a reservation for you and you can just go to the restaurant there.

Speaker 2 18:12

And again, this is Villa Casa Grande. It's Villa Casa Grande and they have the pool there, they have the spa there and they have restaurants, so you can actually just chill out there if you want.

Speaker 3 18:23

It's all vineyard where their bottles of wine are only 7 euros to start. I think it goes 7, 10, then the reserve gets obviously a little more expensive.

Speaker 2 18:33

So people can either go out or they can just stay and kick back.

Speaker 3 18:36

I love that you can go purchase a bottle of wine at the rent, that They'll give you a couple of glasses They'll open it for you and you go back to your room and you sit and enjoy the view. The views were beautiful. I mean I opened my windows and I had a gorgeous view of the La Casa Grande and some of the town and the gardens. It was beautiful and every view, everybody's view, was spectacular. Not one person said their view wasn't spectacular.

Next Day Preview and Final Thoughts

Speaker 2 19:01

Right, so they weren't looking at a wall or a garbage. Can Correct?

Speaker 3 19:05

No, it was all different because of the way it's laid out.

Speaker 1 19:08

The way it's laid out.

Speaker 2 19:09

So everybody had a different view but it was all just beautiful. It's really really nice. Now again, if somebody wants to see this part of Italy and somebody wants to go to Villa Casa Grande, they can contact their travel advisor. Or, you know, if they don't have a travel advisor, they Contact your travel advisor, yeah. Or you know, if they don't have a travel advisor, they can contact Celtic Tours, and it's so easy. The website is so simple Celtictourscom. Yeah, and we just got a new website.

Speaker 3 19:33

I know, I've seen that, that is absolutely beautiful and really easy to navigate. It's very easy to navigate through.

Speaker 2 19:40

Yeah, so that's very good.

Speaker 3 19:42

Yeah, that's very good.

Speaker 2 19:43

Well, I can't wait to hear what's next with the famous statue for day six. So again, Diana, thank you for coming and sitting with me and telling me all about this trip that Celtic Tours does in Italy. Yeah.

Speaker 3 19:59

Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 20:04

Well, that's it for today's episode of the Z Michelson Travel Podcast. I hope you enjoyed our journey and found some new inspiration for your next adventure. Remember, the world is full of stories and sometimes all it takes is a plane ticket to start your own adventure. If you loved today's episode, be sure to tune in every week and don't forget to share your favorite travel moments with me on social media. I'd really love to hear about where you're headed to next. So, until next time, keep exploring, keep discovering and, as always, keep traveling with your heart wide open. I'm Zee Michelson and I'll see you on the next adventure.