Medieval Towns In Tuscany

Today we visited several small medieval Tuscan towns after sleeping in and the children having a morning swim.  We tried finding the towns using a map the owner had left with a different route marked off.  We realized that it must be an old map as our small road suddenly turned into an interstate or motorway (autostrada)!  We got turned around many times because roads aren’t always labeled and the turnoffs often just list towns on that road which are hard to find on the map because some of them are too small to be on the map or are off the edge of your map.  It is very aggravating.  

We finally reached Montepulciano.  From a distant it was very impressive; old stone buildings clustered at the top of a tall hill.  We parked outside and walked in.  The old town was very cute with the labyrinth of narrow streets and walkways, but with it being a Sunday, many shops were closed and there were few people around.  There was a large square with two churches and a new church everytime you turned your head! 

Then we finally found our way to Pienza.  It is much smaller than Montepulciano, but there were more people around, which was nice.  Just as in Montepulciano, we parked outside and wandered the medieval streets.  There was a pretty church off the square with a nicely painted ceiling.  

The last town we walked in was Montalcino.  It is up on a hill with a small castle.  The walk up into town from the car walk was easy, but the castle was unimpressive.   We didn’t purchase the tickets to walk around the towers, but, at the risk of sounding pretentious, well--we’ve seen better.   

Then we tried to make our way to the outskirts of Siena to find a place to eat, but we got to the walls of the old town without finding anything open, so we turned around to go to Taverna d’Arbia--a moderate-sized town near where we’re staying.  While we were trying to find our way out, we got too close to the middle line while a car coming toward us did the same thing and they took our side mirror off (I’m not sure if they lost their mirror too).  That was very scary.  Then, again, the small road suddenly turned into a motorway and we were going the wrong way!  There are very few exits on the autostrada so we took the first one we could and turned around to go the other way while I found where we were on the map and we were then able to follow signs to find Taverna d’Arbia.  We stopped at the first ristorante we saw.  We answered that, yes, we would like to eat outside and they led us to an attractive back patio for our dinner that was not horribly expensive.  I tried gnocchi (not sure if that’s the correct spelling).  I’ve always wanted to, and where better than Italy?!  It is made from potatoes and I seem to remember reading that they are like dumplings and the dough is dropped into boiling water but I could be just imagining that too!  : )   Anyway, it was in a red sauce with buffalo mozzerella (again, spelling) and was delicioso!!  The Diet Coke with it was good too!  I have very little diet coke to drink on vacation because it is expensive to buy in the store and we don’t eat our very often.  It is healthier, but I miss my Diet Coke!  

Below, you can see two photos of our place; one is a view of Tuscany from our front door (and one of the bedroom windows) and the other is looking down on our little piece of yard full of lavender with a portico over a table and chairs.  The other is the sunset.  Still no wi-fi.