We have been in Toscano (Tuscany) for 5 days not counting the 3 days for Rome. Toscano is magnifico!!! The scenery is spectacular. Our pictures do not do it justice!! Today is our final day before we head to Florence, the northern edge of Tuscany. We ended our time here with a 10 hour wine/countryside tour. We visited 3 hill towns in Val d’Orcia: Montalciño, Pienza, and Montepulciano. These are amazing villages set high up on the hills with roots going back to at least Medieval times. The countryside around Montalciño is where the Renaissance painters would go for their inspiration. Our first winery stop, Cantine Di Abbadia Ardenga was a stop along the “Via Francigena” – the road between London, France and Rome as early as 900. The Brunello di Montalciño is a wonderful red wine made from a sangiovese grooso grape only grown here in the Brunello region. It was excellent and we bought a bottle to enjoy later. Here we also had our first taste of grappa, a distillate of pomace or the leftovers from the pressing of grapes (not one of our favorites).

Next on the stop was Pienza. It is the first example of an “ideal Renaissance city.” You could say it was the first planned urban community. We believe that originally it was part of a Siena estate. The landscaping was very pretty with the most fragrant roses I have ever smelled. The architecture and piazza were very interesting. It was Pope Pius II summer home and he ordered the planned city to be built. It was built by Bernardo Rossellino beginning in 1459. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. After wandering around the narrow streets and admiring the architecture and views we boarded the bus for our final stop at Montepulciano. The tasting was in a true wine cellar. There are few white grapes grown in Tuscany but our tasting started off with a white wine that was only 20% Chardonnay but we agreed if we didn’t know better we would think it was a good pure Chardonnay. The red wines were wonderful and of course we took a bottle with us. Again we wandered up and down the hilly streets again admiring unexpected views as they popped up along side streets. With the aid of a map and Wayne’s GPS by thumb we made it back to our meeting place with time to spare.

It was a wonderful end to a wonderful time in Tuscany. Our fellow tourists included couples from Sicily (It was fun trying to communicate with them.), Asia, France, Canada, Oregon & England.

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Tomorrow we are off to Florence.

Ciao,
Wayne & Peggy