Tuscan Adventure

Thursday, May 29

At our home away from home in Montepulcino, Palazzo Carletti, we are served 
breakfast by our wonderful hostess, Milania.  In these tiny hotels, or antique 
residences, you have a host rather than a hotel clerk. And they are only 
available for certain hours. Milania is a spry, young, workhorse. She works 
seven days a week from about 8:00 to 12:00 and 3:00 to 8:00 with some time off 
after tourist season. And yet she maintains a friendly upbeat persona, and is 
very attentive to all her clients' needs. She has marked out a journey for us of 
several hillside Tuscan towns. We intend to visit three towns. 

Before departing from Montepulciano, Larry suggests we see the town we're 
staying in. What a concept!  So we walk around this beautiful village that is 
known for its Vino de Nobile wine. We decide to take a wine cave tour and do 
some wine tasting. While down in the caves, you can walk further down to see an 
Etruscan cave dwelling. The Etruscans lived in this area before the time of 
Christ, first to eighth century B.C.  This is where the term "Tuscany" is 
derived. 

While in the Etruscan cave we see what looks like a giant cooking area. Larry calls it the original Weber. John's 

exclamation, when entering this fine archeological discovery, "It's a man cave!"

Then we start out on our Tuscan adventure. All of these towns are picturesque 

with views of the valley that take your breath away. We tour the towns and have 
a great time. Now it's time to head back. Well...this is when it gets 
interesting!

There are several Tuscan towns that feature hot springs.

This is in Bagno Vignole.













We get lost. We try a u-turn. We realize we've gone the wrong way... again.  We 
try another u-turn. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. The conversation in the car went 
something like this. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is the right road!  We're on our 
way!"  Then after a bit, "Well, I THOUGHT this was the right way. Hmmmm."  
Later, "Maybe we should try a  u-turn."  Now there's only four roads out of this 
town and it seems we've tried all of them at least four times each but none of 
them seem to be the way we came in. We decide to press on. 

We do eventually get back to Montepulciano but by an entirely different route. 
Milania had marked about 10 towns on the map for two possible routes/days of 
visits. We drove by all 10 of them, although we only stopped at three. Jacque 
thinks we should write a movie script of our adventure because it would read 
like The Pink Panther. John says it would have to be a four hour movie!  Larry 
says that would only cover the round-abouts!!

These are hill towns. Which means they're beautiful. And have amazing views.

 But it also means walking up hills...a lot!  John announces that we're walking 
uphill 90% of the time. If his and my math are correct we should be arriving at 
the moon soon!!  While in one of these towns we stop for lunch. One of the

 items on the menus is lardo de colonnata. Since Italian words often seem 

similar to English ones we wonder, "lard of the colon??"  Well, we are near the 

town of Anas.  Glad we didn't order that!

The last town we visit is Montalcino, known for its fine Brunello wine. There we 
add insult to injury...or another few hours to our cross-fit training...when we 
realize we've parked on the opposite side of the town from the historical town 
center. So we walk up and down (but remember it's 90% UP) to see the main part 
of the town and up and down again to get back to the car. Larry keeps saying he 
should have parked somewhere else.  John replies that he parked in the right 
place...for training for the Olympics!

The interesting thing about driving in Italy is that VERY few roads have marked 
names.  You just travel towards a city. Like we were heading to Pienza. So you 
look for markers that say "Pienza". But there's 14 towns' markers on a signpost 
and the driver behind you is on your butt, so you either read very fast...or get 
lost!  And since there's no indicators for north, south, east, or west, if you 
should get off the path you won't see any more signs that say Pienza...and then 
good luck trying to find your way back. But we're not lost...we're on an 
adventure!!!