I am sitting in the third hotel we have stayed at relaxing before dinner and thought, its been far too long since my last post, and I am starting to forget everything that we have seen and done! Internet connection is still not great out here on the Mediterranean Coast, so pictures will be uploaded later. I believe I left off with Wednesday October 10th, so here goes...
Thursday October 11th: We were advised by the villa staff to try the La Crete drive which is known to be very scenic and takes you through several old towns. We finally were able to get the GPS to work, but even with the GPS and two maps, we still got lost! We finally figured out the road we were supposed to be on and headed out. Our first stop was the town of Asciano after looking for parking on very narrow roads, we wandered through the town to look for lunch. Asciano is a small, old town that had very few tourists. We had a delicious lunch and wandered a few more minutes before getting back in the car and heading towards our next stop.
La Crete was somewhat reminiscent of California's I-5. A lot of farm land that has been recently dug up and harvested. Not exactly what we were thinking of, but it was still a nice drive.
On the windy roads, we stumbled across the Abbey di Monte Oliveto Maggiore. It was a very quiet, beautiful monastary out in the middle of the woods.
Our next stop was Montalcino which is the home of Brunello wine. Robert was very excited to be here and taste the Brunello's, I was enthralled by the beauty of this hilltop town. We wandered the streets heading towards the fortress where they had wine tastings. The wine's we tasted were delicious, but way too much money for our tastes. We headed up the fortress stairs for yet another panoramic view of part of Italy.
After Montalcino, we headed towards Montepulciano, a gorgeous, huge, gothic town which if we hadn't arrived so late, we would have spent more time in. While looking for parking, we mistakenly entered the old towns street and had quite the adventure. We watched as the car in front of us tried to back up and ended up hitting a statue, and fumbled through the steep hill that was the road, in our little Ford Fiesta! I have a video of that, so I will post it later! We finally found parking and started walking up the steep hill. Montepulciano is the home of what is now my favorite type of wine Vino Nobile. We had dinner at a lovely restaurant and drank amazing wine. Its definitely a place I will want to go back to and explore someday.
I'm going to cut this blog short, because there is an amazing sunset happening! I will try to write again later tonight or tomorrow morning about our fun trip on Friday through the Chianti area!!
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