Thursday, September 15
Today we rented a very large van and drove to several places in Tuscany before getting to our next B&B. Greve is a picturesque town where the town square has a status of Guiseppe Verrenzano (of Verranzano Bridge fame) and a strange status of a nude male torso. Kind of like the ‘David’ in Florence but without head, arms, or legs – but with everything else. (!)
San Gimignano is a medieval walled town where, for some reason, the people built lots of high towers. The skyline looks a little like NYC. I should research the history of this place. Why did they build so many towers? The drive to San Gimignano was long and very curvy and mountenous roads. I arrived in San Gimignano very car sick and very dizzy!
The drive from there to our next B&B was flatter and much better – but very exciting in its own way. We made a few wrong turns and had some exciting times on steep and narrow dirt roads and hair pin turns. Jack and Lisa did a great job driving today in very trying circumstances.
The Tuscan vistas from those curving mountain roards were spectacular.
We finally arrived at Montalcino and at our B&B – La Crociona Crocedimezzo.
This is a working vineyard but also has 11 small apartments for rent.
The land is beautiful, small patios set under grape vines, a pool, lots of grape vines.
Friday, September 16
Montalcino has market day on Friday. We parked in a lot at the edge of town and walked up about 4 flights of stairs into this ancient hilltop village. The streets were all stone. This was obviously a place where people lived. We heard much more Italian being spoken than English – few tourists. It took us a while to find the market – a kind of Italian rural K-Mart. There were stalls selling clothes, shoes, sewing supplies, table cloths, curtains, and at the end, food. Fruits, vegetables, sliced meats, cheeses, and at one stand a man was slicing slabs from what looked like a whole pig. We wandered around a bit, had breakfast at a café, and then bought supplies for lunch. The grocery store was fun, figuring out how to weigh the oranges we bought, and communicating with the ladies at the deli counter.
Once we had made our sandwiches for a picnic lunch, we drove to an Abbey first built in the 800s. There the brothers still sing their prayers 6 times a day in Gregorian chant. Abbazia di Sant Antimo is beautiful and showing its age.
The stone is cream colored. High windows let in streams of light. There are columns inside along the center aisle, two of them with carved figures at the top instead of the stylized leaves on the others. One square post has a mural painted on it.
About 30 people wandered in for the 12:45 prayers. Eventually the brothers, eight ordinary looking men – various ages and sizes, filed in, in their white habits. There are 60 brothers at the abbey, but only 8 at a time ‘perform for the crowd’. The prayers, Sesta, took only about 15 minutes. The voices were ordinary except for one brother who had a clear sweet voice. The crowd of tourists mostly stood when the brothers stood and sat when the brothers sat. Though, that petered out after a while. I find it curious that people, young and older, who are marching around sightseeing, find it too tiring to stand for maybe 5 minutes. When prayers were over, the brothers filed out and the crowd dispersed.
We proceeded on to the Ciacci Picolomini d’Aragona winery for a tour and tasting. First though we ate our picnic lunch at the winery on a rise with a beautiful view of the Tuscan landscape. We then had about 45 minutes to lie around in the grass and rest – a very nice break in an otherwise hectic few days.
The tour and tasting was conducted by a young woman named Martina. She was informative and friendly and we dutifully swirled, and sniffed, and tasted and discussed and compared. Don was very amused by the whole procedure. She poured him a taste of the best wine. He still doesn’t like wine.
Supper was at a restaurant down the road from the B&B, Fattoria dei Barbie. We were unprepared for the beauty and style of the place.
There was a huge arched fireplace, beautiful wood framed arched windows thrown open to the evening.
Every once in a while the resident dog – looked like maybe a Russian wolfhound – would stick his head in a window – which was conveniently at chin height for him – and tell us something and then run off.
We were the only ones there for quite a while and were greeted at the door as “Bar-ba-ra’s friends”! Barbara is the owner of the B&B who had recommended the place to us and made the reservations. With this special status, we were treated to a free appetizer, 10% off, and shots of grappa at the end of the meal. Don revealed that my father had introduced him to grappa when we were engaged. Grappa is a very strong liquor that all the wineries make out of what’s left of the grapes after the wine is made. Maybe this was like a rite of passage that, hopefully, Don passed. He says he threw the shots back as instructed.
Saturday, September 17
Pienza and Montepulciano are two more walled cities on mountain tops – more so, Montepulciano. Pienza is noted for its Pecorino cheese which they recommend eating with honey and pears. It is a very good combination.
Montepulciano is spectacular. Very high up – you can see it far in the distance while driving to it – very steep streets, a large piazza surrounded by big official looking buildings – one, a church, of course.
We had lunch in the piazza under an umbrella. Montepulciano is something of an artist colony. They actually have an art festival in July/August and put on musical works too. The shops were a cut above the ones in the other towns.
Sunday, September 18
A day of rest!!! I finally broke out my sketch book and pencils and had fun drawing grapes and a sunny window in a stone building.
The sky is developing some dramatic clouds – the first clouds we’ve seen in Tuscany – and the wind is blowing in a weather change. It may be raining in Rome tomorrow.
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