The scenery in Tuscany is just beautiful. Rolling hills full of vineyards, olive groves and a wide variety of crops. There are hundreds of paddocks full of sunflowers, some of which are just starting to flower, and in a few weeks Tuscany & Umbria will be a sea of gold! And of course there are the tall pencil pines. In the towns, the smell of star jasmine fills the air. It is a lovely time to be here. You see San Gimignano from a long way away, with its famous towers jutting up into the sky. It is a lovely walled town, high on a hill. Our hotel, is a short drive outside the wall, and is called Relais Cappucina. It is quite modern, set on quite a lot of land, and has a lovely pool area as well as its own restaurant. The included breakfast is excellent, served out around the pool. After a quick check in, we headed into town to explore. You have to park outside the city walls, unless a resident. There are a number of designated car parks. All the hilltop or walled cities are the same, and parking is around €1.5 to €2.0 per hour. The weather was stormy, with thunder & lightning, so with brollies in hand we walked town. It really is lovely, but very crowded with tourists. As the rain came, we stopped for coffee, and based on the conversations going on, we could have been anywhere in the USA! Boy are some of them loud! I think they should be fitted with volume controls before they leave home! The town is shopping heaven, with so many stores selling, ceramics, leather goods, shoes & general tourist merchandise. Being Medieval towns, there is everything imaginable in weaponry to buy. Swords, knives of all sizes, cross bows, long bows, sling shots. You can even buy a suit of armour for yourself & your horse! I cracked up at this American guy asking the shopkeeper, if he would have any trouble taking his sword & crossbow through customs. "No Problem Señor. I pack special for you". Good luck with that!
The rain wasn't letting up, so we decided to have dinner at the restaurant where we were staying. The menu looked good, and reasonably priced. The food was excellent. The service was appalling! I swear, that the two guys doing the waiting, used episodes of Fawlty Towers as training videos! We booked a specific table, which when we arrived was being used. When we asked why, the guy said "because I no look in book. You have this one, better table. But it is behind a pillar. Si, but nice pillar!" We gave up and sat at the next table. He brought menus, and I asked if we could order drinks. He replied Si, and wandered off! When I finally got his attention, he said "oh, you want drink now?" Our antipasto plate was brought to the table with such a flourish, that half the food left the plate & spilled across the table! It was a circus, but as I said at the beginning, the food was excellent. I had the local specialty, which was wild boar chasseur. It was delicious. Next morning, in the same dining room, the breakfast was the best we've had. All the included breakfasts are continental, but this had everything, and the plates of local meats, cheeses, & fruit were fantastic, as were the pastries.
After breakfast, we headed into town,and spent the day walking the streets of San Gimignano. The church is lovely, and after you pay for entry, you get a free audio guide. The church has some incredible frescoes down each side of the church. The audio guide explained in detail the biblical story of every fresco in the church, and there are dozens of them. I don't think anyone has listened to the entire tape! It goes on & on & on & on. There were people asleep on the pews. Carolyn woke me when she had enough, and I fast forwarded mine so they wouldn't know! That evening, we came back into town for dinner. As I've said before, the towns are so different once the day trippers have left. The streets are quiet, the locals come out, and it takes on a whole new ambience. We love it. We found another great Pizzeria, and shared Pizza & Salad. We can't believe how many different kinds of pizza there are, all made their own traditional way, and all so good. Minimal topping, and maximum flavour, all with that fantastic, fresh tomato sauce. After pizza, we had the best gelato we have had so far. The shop on the main square, says it has the best gelato in the world, and it is fantastic. The flavours are so intense. One flavour, which combined lemon & orange together, with white chocolate, was incredible!
Our first day of touring took us into the Tuscan wine region, in search of the famous Italian wine, Brunello. It is only grown in a small area around the village of Montalcino, and is world renowned. The town of Montalcino is another great hilltop town, full of wine shops, Enoteca! You can taste the wines, but pay to taste. It is interesting, that the better the wine, the more you pay to taste. In one wine shop, they had an elaborate, electronic tasting system, and dozens of wines were wired up for tasting! Each wine displayed the price for a tasting sample, which varied from €1 up to €10, or you could have a small (75ml) or large (150ml) glass. We paid for a couple of tastes in the mid price range, and the wine was excellent fron the 2010 vintage. We explored the town, and lunched at a delightful little family cafe, where we sat next to the window with a panoramic view out over the Tuscan vineyards, and had the most wonderful home made pasta, mine had a meat sauce, and Carolyn's just had tomato & garlic. We have never eaten pasta like this.
From Montalcino, we headed on to Pienza, yet another Tuscan hilltop village with amazing views. Pienza is more a cultural town, with lots of galleries and exhibitions, and lots of craft shops. It is also famous for its Pecorino cheese, so there are lots of cheese shops. The smell when you step inside is amazing. Row after row of fresh cheese. There were less tourists here, and all of them were American! It was as if some American tour operator had said, "I've got six buses leaving for Pienza in the morning." From Pienza, it was on to Montepulciano, another famous wine town, and again, a large hilltop town. Before driving up to the town, you have to stop at the imposing Tempio Di San Biagio, a huge church that you can see from miles away. Here we met a charming couple from Adelaide, who we swapped stories with for some time, before heading into town. Montepulciano, is lovely. As we arrived late afternoon, we jagged a parking spot close to the town gate, and started our walk into town. This is one steep, hilly town, and it is quite large. We just started walking up the winding streets full of shops & cafes, and eventually made it to the top and the Piazza Grande. The views are stunning. There are lots of churches, and other impressive old buildings. I found a shop that had a nice range of T Shirts, and asked if they had my size in a couple of deigns I liked. The young guy running the shop insisted the shirts could fit even though we knew they were too small, and next thing he was dragging it over my head and my existing shirt! He finally agreed the size was too small, and cheerfully shrugged his shoulders and said " we try!" I loved the guy, when Carolyn said I ate too much so was big, he said to Carolyn, "no you feed him too much!" We really loved Montelpulciano, and on the way back down the hill stopped at one of the many bars for a drink. Most bars bring out food with the drinks, and if you have a few drinks you don't need dinner! This was no exception. We headed back to San Gimignano for dinner. As it was quite late, we easily parked near the main gate, and headed to a small restaurant we had seen up an alley just inside the gate. It was packed, the only outside table was crammed in between other diners, so we opted to dine inside, where it was as equally packed! We sat elbow to elbow with other diners, and assumed it had to be good, given the crowd. The English lady next to Carolyn started talking & didn't draw breath for the next hour until she left. I think she inhaled her dessert, so as not to stop talking! There was nothing she didn't know & no where she hadn't been. She was a right pain in the arse! We were exhausted by the time she left! The food was great. I had a fantastic Osso Bucco, and Carolyn's Tagliatelle with porcini mushrooms & roasted garlic, was also great. We waddled home & into bed.
Next morning we were off to Siena. What a great town. We parked outside & started the long walk up to the old town. By sheer good luck, we had parked near this enormous set of escalators, 8 in total, that took us up to the town, saving heaps of time, not to mention my knees! We headed straight for the famous square, Piazza del Campo, scene off the amazing horse race held each July & August. It is hard to imagine the horses racing around the fan shaped Piazza at break neck speed. It is even harder to imagine that we would run into that same English woman, waving and calling "over here!" She was still talking as we left. In fact, she still probably doesn't realise we've left. From the square, we headed up to the Duomo, another incredible church. The mosaics on the floor are unbelievable, and the frescos and marble sculptures are equally as impressive. Just when you think you've seen it all, you take a side trip into the library, where the frescos on the walls & ceiling are simply dazzling. The highlight of the combined ticket, which also takes in the museum, where there are so many incredible exhibits, is the Panorama. You walk up several flights of stairs, past more rooms full of relics & paintings, and then reach a small waiting room, where we just sat waiting our turn at the Panorama. When we are called, we ascend 146 spiral steps to the top of the church where the Panorama awaits in the form of the most incredible views over the town of Siena & the Tuscan countryside. It was worth the pain of the climb!
After a wander around the streets of Siena, we jumped back into the car and took a lovely drive over to Greve in Chianti, centre of the Chianti wine growing region. It is a more modern style of town, with a great piazza. It is full of wine shops & has the most fantastic butcher shop. As we were peering in the window, a tour bus arrived and 50 tourists poured into the butcher shop! They make all their own hams & salami, as well as doing all the fresh meat. It is interesting here, that butchers don't display meat all cut up. They cut everything fresh. The meat is very good. We couldn't resist buying some small packs of salami, ham & crostini, plus a traditional basket wrapped bottle of Chianti, to take home for happy hour, and it was delicious. A drive up to the castle above town provided some striking views out over the Chianto region. That night, back in San Gimignano, we craved meat, and just outside of the walls of the town, found a traditional Tuscan grill restaurant. Here they cook over a huge open, wood fired pit. The specialty is these giant T-Bones. They are just too big for us to handle, so Carolyn ordered a steak with green peppercorns, while I had a sliced steak with rocket, Parmesan & cherry tomatoes. This was our best steak dinner yet! A nice bottle of the local red & our last night in San Gimignano was almost complete. Our last task, a walk into the Piazza for one last gelato for dessert!!
Next morning we were packed & ready for a short drive to Lucca, via Pisa. We had heard so many conflicting stories about Pisa. Of course there is that leaning tower & lovely cathedral & baptistry, but most said the town itself was dirty & pretty rough. We first found a car space in the city and walked the Corsa Italia shopping region, and the main piazza down to the train station. We found it good, and had an excellent coffee. Along the river though, there was rubbish everywhere, but there had been a huge event over the previous weekend, and they were still dismantling barriers, stands & speakers. We then drove over to the tower, so didn't walk the suburbs which some say are a bit dodgy. That leaning tower is an iconic Italian thing, and we were amazed at just how much it leans! We did the photos and stood & stared. We didn't do the climb, which had been booked out for a couple of days, but we did go into the huge cathedral which is another impressive showing of the church's wealth & power. Beggars on the steps, & all that wealth inside. It is such a contradiction! The grounds around the tower & cathedral were lovely, and packed with people, many picnicking on the lawns. It was all very nice.
We found our car, and set course for Lucca, one of Italy's best kept walled cities. We found our B&B, Villa Agnese, which was one of the old Noble houses, that line the streets just outside the wall. It was really nice with parking out the back. The girls who ran the place were fantastic. All the rooms were themed. We got the Pasticceria! How appropriate! Breakfast was served out in the back garden, which was a real treat. Luca is a large walled city, and the only one in Italy where the massive walls were never breached throughout history. The walls are so thick, there is a road and walking track on top. You can walk the entire perimeter of the town, which we did. All 4.5 kilometres! In the shade of huge oak trees that grow on top of the wall, it was quite pleasant, and the views out over the town are fantastic. In town, it is all narrow streets & laneways, with the usual assortment of shops & cafes, churches & palaces. So much more history to try & absorb. There is a great oval shaped Amphitheatre in town, where entry is gained through a few archways. From outside, you wouldn't know it was there, until you walk through one of those arches. It is massive, and the perimeter is filled with cafes & bars. We had dinner here one night, and the other night had a great pizza at a small place in one of the laneways. This one had marscapone cheese on it! We enjoyed our time walking the streets of Lucca. It is a nice town. As we walked along one of the narrow laneways, we could hear the strains of the song Hallelujah. As we turned the corner, we found a guy busking. He had the most incredible voice, and quite a crowd around him. We sat for a while and just listened. It was the best free concert! Next morning we drove out of town, on a wonderful drive that took us over the Appenine mountains. The scenery along a beautiful river was gorgeous, and the views as we climbed high over the mountains were incredible. We were headed for the region of Emelia Romagiano, and the little town of Polignano.
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