Tuesday, October 2
Today seemed like a good day for a road trip so Skip, Josie, Lorri and I jumped into our trusty VW and headed toward Pienza (home of pecorino cheese and Pope Pius II) and Montepulciano (home of good red wine!)
Tuscany is chock full of picturesque little hill towns - towns surrounded by walls, gates and fortifications built on hilltops hundreds of years ago. Pienza is one of the better known towns because of the cheese and because a pope used to live there and you can tour the Pope's house (palace) and taste the cheese. Of the two, I found the cheese to be more exciting.
The three shots above are of the Palazzo Piccolomini, the Pope's house in the 1500's.
The streets of Pienza
The gate to Montepulciano and a view of the city from a distance.
Just a typical road sign
We had a nice lunch at Osteria del Borgo then went on search of some Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, which not surprisingly, we tracked down nearly immediately! You can see Skip and I holding up our first score and then a scene from inside a ceramics shop.
Back at the Villa
On the way back from Montepulciano, we found a good Coop, a market controlled by the local growers, in San Quirico D'Orcia and bought some supplies for dinner. The plan was to grill some chicken, whip up some risotto, sauté some fresh zucchini and wash it all down with plenty of vino. It was a good plan. The key was actually finding some charcoal which the Coops don't carry. Skip and I had some fun trying to ask for charcoal and lighter from people who spoke no English. We figured it must exist somewhere because there was a charcoal grill at the Villa. We found some at a small quicky mart somewhere near Pienza.
We had another excellent dinner, this time al fresco in the lower dining area off the main patio.
After dinner we usually gathered around the fireplace (Skip was the chief fire man) in the main living room for drinks and a rehash of the days events. A little Limoncello anyone?
