Castel Pietraio
The castle is a working winery. We found it online through the agriturismo program. It was beautiful and wonderful. You can contact them directly through their web site at: Castel Pietraio
We had a rare snow during our visit which created some wonderful opportunities for next years Christmas pictures! It melted by afternoon, snowed again overnight, melted even faster, then the rest of the trip was sunny and warm. Perfect weather for us Californian's who rarely see snow!
This is the view of the castel from the parking lot.
This is the view out our kitchen window onto the courtyard of the castel.
The view from our bedroom window out into the vinyards on the heavier snowy day. That sureal look really was there.
To get to our rooms, you had to unlock the door on the right.
Sam running out to play in the snow outside of the courtyard.
The view from the courtyard stairs overlooking the snow on our first day.
Snowball fight!
Sam and Jonathan locked in the dungeon. yes, this castel really has a dungeon. We had to take this photo twice because Sam looked too happy in the first one!
A sunny day looking at the espaliered arches. I took this because I want to do something similar in my own garden but it turned out to be a nice shot anyway.
This is a working winery. The bottling truck pulled up with it's self contained bottling plant, hoses were hooked up to the vats of wine and out came cases on the other end. It was really amazing to watch. And the castel wines are very nice. We tried two of them.
Below is a farm near the castel on a sunny walk.
Early signs of spring in the flowering trees, again on our walk near the castel.
More signs of spring on our walk. The rocks in this photo are the top of a stone wall along the road that I took this shot over.
The nearby "large" town of Monteriggioni seen from the drive a few moments from the castel. It takes less then ten minutes to drive to the top of this town from the castel gates.
