Montepulciano

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Sunday, Oct 9 Montepulciano
Today was our first day of exploring from our Umbrian base. Actually we learned today that we are actually right on the border between Tuscany and Umbria. The border skirts around Lake Chiusi and we are just off the lake so probably barely inside Umbria. We have had several busy days so this morning we had a relaxed morning at the apartment and finally left for Montepulciano close to noon. Today was our first cold day. It was about +10 but very windy, mostly cloudy and it rained a little bit on and off. It was our first day to wear socks, long pants and jackets.

Montepulciano is back in Tuscany about 40 min away. I had wanted to visit it as one of the books I had read based in Tuscany took place in that area, and Claude was interested in the Vino Nobile wine that is from that area. One of the coolest things about the city was that they were really tech savy. Most every attraction or key building in the area had a smart phone hotspot where you could scan to learn about that particular place. Unfortunately we didn’t have that capability on our phone, but handy for us was that many of those same places were free WIFI zones. Since we don’t have internet at this new place we had brought along our tablet in hopes that we could hook via skype with our boys today. It worked great. We ducked into an empty covered palazzo and were able to talk to home for quite a while. We could even pan out with our webcam to show the boys the town beside us.

We did a few tastings of the Vino Nobile. We didn’t care for it as much as the Brunello from Montalcino yesterday, but did find one that we did like for supper. One of the places we visited was the originator of Vino Nobile and has been making is for something like 500 years or more. In one of the wine tasting spots they let you go down into their underground cellars. That was cool because you went down a long way through a few tunnels before you came to the giant wood vats for aging the wine. Claude was in wine heaven. They also had a tasting room underground and steps down into what we believe was an Etruscan storage cave.

One of the churches that we went into today was interesting because decoratively it was very different from the other ones we had visited. It had a marble facade and inside it was not covered in frescoes like most of the churches. It was very classically beautiful inside. Most of the decoration was just in the ornamentation of the structure itself. It was mostly white with just light decorative touches. Only a few large paintings and some white marble sculptures. We discovered when we came out that this church had been redone in the 1700s so was after the Renaissance and much simpler and more “modern” in design.

The fortress in town is now an art gallery. However they happened to have an exhibit there detailing the natural history of the Chiusi basin. Piero, the agroturismo owner had told us that the farm was settled in the early 1800s after the lake was drained. It turned out that this area has been fluctuating between being a large river or a huge lake basin for thousands of years. During the renaissance an earthquake actually diverted the river flow out of the basin and the Medicis decided they wanted it back the way it was so they damming and diversions to get it back to flowing to the Arno. The last time the area was changed was in the early 1800’s when the lake was again partially drained, this time for farming, and the water diverted. I think they said the river changed flow direction at least 3 times over history.

We mostly just enjoyed walking about town here. Each town is neat because they are “the same” in the sense that they are all medieval and walled, yet each one is very different inside with neat nooks and crannies to explore. We left there and decided that we would eat dinner in Castaliogne del Lago instead of cooking at home. Castaliogne is on the large lake (lago), just to the east of us. It had a nice small walled old town (Centro Storico), with high castle walls overlooking the lake. We walked around the old town and got some flat bread, truffle flavoured cheese and wild board prosciutto for breakfast . Piero, the apartment owner had recommended a restaurant to us along the lake that his friend owned. We went there for dinner. It turns out they don’t open for dinner until 7:30, so we did some more exploring and walked along the lake abit. However by this time it was getting cold. The dinner was to be our special dinner out and it didn’t disappoint. The atmosphere was fairly fancy but not too formal. It was all locals in the restaurant. Their specialty was seafood, so we started with bruschetta (and he brought us complimentary champagne since Piero sent us), then Claude had mini gnocci with squid and and I had mixed seafood risotto for our first course (Pasta is a first course after the appetizer in Italy). For our second course (the first time we got past just having the first course), Claude had a mixed grill of seafood and I had skewers of shrimp and squid. It was a very good meal and he also gave us 10% off in the end so it was a very inexpensive meal too.
We returned home and our cat friend came calling. I didn’t have much to feed him since we hadn’t eaten here, but I gave him a slice of Mordatella (cold cut), that was to be part of breakfast.

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Photos

main church in Montepulciano
very "modern" beautiful church inside (1700s)