The Right Place on the Wrong Day

We rushed around this morning to get everyone ready to drive to Pienza to participate in the Etruscan Tomb tour. As soon as we drove into the parking area of the working farm, Scott says, "Wait, I think the tour isn't until tomorrow!" So, we had to quickly rethink the plans for our day. We decided to do a driving tour that Issabella suggests for her guests.


We drove to Montepulciano first and realized when we got there that we were all famished as we didn't get to eat much before we raced out of the apartment this morning. Unfortunately, none of the restaurants were open yet. We toured part of this old hilltown, famous for it's wine, while we were really searching for a trattoria or osteria with a nice view of the Tuscan countryside. We finally found one with a drop-dead view, but they took advantage of having the view and served crappy food. We ate enough to stave off the shakes. We then climbed the little tower in the piazza to view the city....it was all of maybe 40 or 50 steps!! Apparently you don't really get to climb the tower, you just get to go up to the terrace. The view was just OK as the lighting washed everything out.

We then drove to the next hilltown, Montefollonico....a much smaller, more quaint town that was so sleepy that we hardly saw anyone. I found this great door knocker here that is actually shaped like a hand. I love it as the houses/apartments in the hilltowns seem to be distinguished by their doors, handles and knockers.
We were also very pleased because this town had a restaurant that Issabella recommended highly! They had a huge wheel of Pecorino cheese that was mostly hollowed out that they mix a tagliatelle dish in as they scrape cheese off of the walls of the wheel....it was good if you got a chunk of pecorino, but otherwise, I thought it was just OK. We also tried a wild boar and mushroom dish and ribolita. They were both excellent!



We only drove through the next town, Petroio, but it was quite an experience as the streets were extremely skinny and we had to fold our mirrors in to squeak between the walls of the buildings! Scott did an amazing job maneuvering through the streets, but we decided it wasn't worth driving through anymore ancient hilltowns that were built before cars.


Next we drove on to Montisi, an even smaller hilltown. We parked and walked in. This was the sleepiest town of all and we loved it. Tony thought it was the sleepiest town also!



Montisi is the town next to our town of Castlemuzio and so we popped home so I could cook up some dinner. We started snacking on leftover meats, cheeses, bread, olive oil and wine. After overeating on our antipasta, we decided that a salad would be all we needed for dinner. We used all of the produce we picked at the garden...succulent leaf lettuce, zucchini, onion, parsley, tomato, basil, oil, balsamic, salt, pepper and pecorino cheese. It was fresh, flavorful and the perfect dinner.



We walked around town after it had shut down for the night. It was very quiet and the moon (almost full) was lighting everything up. Scott got a really great picture of me and Tree in the moonlight.

We finished off the night with some Limoncello and then went to bed since we had to get up early again for the REAL Etruscan Tomb tour!