Montepulciano, in the heart of Tuscan Hill County

The Tuscan Hill Country

What can we say except that the Tuscan Hill country is breathtakingly beautiful. We first thought it looked like home in California. The the deeper in we drove, we realized that yes, it looks like Napa, but times ten.

(Remember to click on the pics to enlarge them, then hit your back arrow to get back to the blog.)

Right now red poppies everywhere. In July come the sunflowers.

Driving through just about any town, look up, and what do you see...why a castle of course.

A walled-in town at the top of a hill. They are everywhere.

 

Looking out over the valley from a street of the Montepulciano, the hill town where we stayed for a week. 

Montepulciano---a hill town whose roots date back to as early as 400 BC. Today, it is a thriving town, mostly inhabited by elderly Italians, tourists, and a few families.

At the very top of this hill is the entire town of Montepulciano. 15,000 residents.

 Boy did we pack right. Not only is the city at the top of the hill, the parking up there is only for residents and workers. Looking down over the stairs we had to carry our luggage up and down. 70 stairs to be exact.

Our cute little apartment...hanging out the window like a little old Italian lady. 

We went exploring the dark, scary section under our apartment. Look what Ken found hiding!

 

A sample of the entrances to this medieval city. One can just imagine the Knight's riding up after a long, dusty ride bringing news and orders to the nobelmen and preists. 

 One can envision the tangled web of streets and alleyways that weave through this hill. Looking down over a typical street every bit as winding as the famous Lombard St. in San Francisco.

 

A typical alleyway.

 

Don't think for a minute that these winding climbs even slow down the old folks. This very cute old guy, with his pants pulled up over his ribs takes a we'll earned break at the very top of the hill, the main plaza.  

And he ain't got nothin on her. She was carrying groceries and scaled this hill in break-wind speed. 

 

 And yes! Can you believe they drive through these tiny streets? And you'd better get out the way, because they are not driving slow not big on slowing down. 

Which leads us to the cars...

Not all cars in Europe are as small as these, but Carol is obsessed with the tiny ones and can't stop taking their pictures. Overall, Europe is set up for small cars. The parking spaces are small, the streets are narrow, and there is a conscience of environmental impact (not to mention the high cost of gas). Many, many people bike and motorbike around also.

Cute!!!

 

 

 They are like grown-up Hot Wheels.

 

 The Churches

There are at least 4 beautiful churches in this tiny town. Following is San Biagio.

This beautiful church sits lower on the hill, just outside the walls of the city.

 

 

Now on to our favorite part of Italy, the food and the wine. 

We both agree that we are ruined for life. Pasta will never be the same again. We have been unable to find good pizza and learned it is not traditional for this region (Rome and Naples). This region is famous for it's pastas. We took a cooking class in making homemade pasta and hope we can at least come close to the Italians when we cook some for you. 

 

Traditional Tuscan "Pici." 

This looks like spaghetti, but the noodles are much thicker and hand rolled. This is the traditional food of the poor people as it has only flour and water. The story told is that back in the day, the rich people took all the eggs, and the poor had only flour and water for pasta. Today, it is one of the most ordered items in Montepulciano, even in the nicest restaurants.

 Hand rolled homemade lasagne with homemade tomato sauce.

 

 The most unusual and best eggplant parmigiana ever. No breading, just veggies and cheese, healthy.

Cooking Class: Homemade Pasta and sauce.

 

 Ken hand rolling Pici.

 

Carol likely bossing the owners around. hahaha

In this little restaurant, the owner kept going around to the tables and loudly singing Italian arias along with Pavarotti on the bigscreen TV in the corner. I am going to try to post the video. It's a crackup, but not sure we can on this site. Check the side bar later.

The waitress refused to bring our check. When we asked her for it she told us to sit back, relax, and enjoy the evening. Then she ignored Ken every time he tried to make eye contact. LOL it was a crackup.

This is also where we had one of the best soups either of us has ever tried (there is not a bad soup in Italy). Spinach, Ricotta soup.

And then there is the cheese and salami. Beautiful little cheese and ham shops in every town. 

Lots of local cheeses. The one below is cured in ashes. It is a mild Pecorino, sheep's milk. Delicious.

You can find all kinds of great salami and pruscitto (ham), but these are made from Boars' meat.

Finally, the Wine

The Italian wines are beautiful. You can go to just about any restaurant, order a carafe of "house wine" for just a few bucks, and know it will great. We think it's probably accurate to say there are not to many places in the world which can make this claim.

At this crazy restaurant, they give you only one glass and you must use it for both your wine and your water. Plus this eccentric owner kicked us out for sitting to long when others were waiting to come in. LOL

We got in our car and spent several days just driving around the wine country. It's nothing like Napa. There are very few tasting rooms and they don't really care if you visit or not. It's not the big business we have in California. They don't charge for tasting and they really don't try to sell you wine. They market in other ways.

The three wineries we did get to visit: Casanova Di Neri, El Greppo, and Icaro.  They couldn't be more different.

Casanova Di Neri: Out in the hills in Montpalcino. No one mans their tasting room. When we got there, we went into the office and asked it they had a tasting room. They manager said, no problem, follow me and I'll let you taste some wines. Their 2006 was named number one in the world by wine spectator. Regardless, they told us they would open anything we wanted and let us have a taste. They did not have any of the 2006 left, bet we tried other things. .

El Greppo, This tiny winery, set in a barn on the above breathtakingly beautiful property, taught us about some of the local wines we had not heard of. Vin Santo is made at Easter, therefore it's name (Santo=holy). It is a sweeter, dessert wine. Grappa is a hard liquor made from the spent grape skins. It was also very good even though we had only the tiniest taste (42% alc.).

Icaro is more of a commercial winery, very contemporary style. This winery owner is a lover of art and always has a show going on. The following art pieces are made entirely from bubble gum.

Gum wine branches set over a painting.

 

  A bubble gum girl. She smells like gum.

The healing waters of Bagno Vignone

Our waiter told us we had to visit this remote, tiny town on a hill. 

 

Soaking our feet with the locals in the natural hot springs. They knew enough to bring pillows to sit on. We are hoping the water does magic for Ken's feet!

The hot spring bathing pool.

Finally, one of Carol's favorite parts of this area and her other obsession....the Laundry. 

It's everywhere. LOL

 

 

 

 

 

 There is so much more to show. We will add more as time goes on.