Lost Day in Montepulciano

Montepulciano   July 26, 2015

Saturday morning we left Florence driving through the lovely countyside that is Tuscany. Jocey was doing yeomans work at reading and watching the scenery at the same time.  She multi-tasks just like her grandmother. We stopped in one of our favorite Tuscan towns, Greve in Chianti. Unfortunately, it was market day so  we could not enjoy the beauty of the town square.  One of the reasons we love Greve is the butcher shop that has been in business since some time in the 1700's. There are legs of ham hanging from the ceiling everywhere in the building.  Jocey was less then impressed with the cheese cellar.  We bought some of their homemade salami's to give Mienrad Fleurer, our friend in Switzerland. We continued our trek through Tuscany through intermitent showers.  Our next stop was Badia a Coltibuono. We believe that Badia is home to an order of Friars. They produce their own excellent wine and olive oil as well as run an excellent restaurant that we have dined at on several occasions.  Our destination was Montepulciano, a lovely hill town in the eastern part of Tuscany.  Interestingly, we drove out of vineyards and olive orchards into an area of large wheat fields.  Our instructions from our landlord was that there was a car park a mere 100-150 yards from the apartment.  He neglected to tell us it was straight up hill. To add insult to injury the apartment was on the third floor of the building with no elevator. There was urgency to getting the luggage to the apartment as there were very dark clouds moving  in with rumbles of thunder. The apartment is beautiful.  We think Jocey wants to stay here forever. The women folk collapsed with their books whilel Tim found a nearby bar for a very welcome cold beer. When he returned to the apartment Jocey was still reading in her room and Lynda was napping.  After Tim dozed a bit he suggested that he and Jocey go find a gelato. While walking about the city eating our gelato we discovered the Museum of Torture. There was no doubt that Jocey wanted to go in and that grandpa would accompany her. Parts of the museum were really quite disturbing.  We won't go into any detail here but if you are interested, we will talk to you when we get home. But be forewarned. Tim did not sleep well last night.

This morning the first person up was Tim at 10:00.  By noon we had ventured out to find lunch. During lunch there was discussion of what to do the rest of the day. Lynda and Jocey wanted to drive out into the country side, find a quite place to sit and read.  Tim was not feeling well and wanted to go back to the apartment.  Which is what we did.  Tim slept and read. Lynda read and did laundry. Jocey read.  Only Jocey felt like going out this evening so we sent her on several trips to pick up pizza and coke for our evening meal.  She did this quite willingly.  We actually had to stop her from going out again.

While we did not see much of  Montepulciano, after the whirlwind of Venice and Florence, it was probably a good idea to have a quiet day before we head to Rome tomorrow.

Ciao