Day 28 - Tuscany

Today we leave our BnB ‘Roseti’ near Montepulciano and head on to Chianti region.

Upon having breakfast, we settled up the stay with Gianni and his sausage dog, said our goodbyes and how good it has been staying in their property.

We ventured onto the village of Pienza, The central Piazza Pio II is framed by 15th-century buildings like the Pienza Cathedral and Piccolomini Palace. The latter was Pope Pius II’s summer residence and features a roof garden with valley views. Flemish tapestries and the pope’s embroidered cape are on display at the Diocesan Museum. West is the Pieve di Corsignano, a Romanesque church with a circular bell tower. We walked around for an hour admiring the views from the village, as we were leaving the village was filling up and parking was getting hard - I was stoked that it was pretty easy once we found the right car park area to park!

We drove to the next village over of San Quirico d’Orcia, we picked up some cheese for a crackers, tomatoes & cheese lunch as we need a break from Italian lunches sorry to say. We drove out of the town Vitale di Capressi, which is made famous from Gladiator movie where Maximus is dreaming of home and the scene where the guards come to kill his family and burn his house from not pledging his allegiance to the new king. It was a wee bit down the road we found a little spot to have our lunch.

We kept driving on from there and drove up to Sinalunga, as it was Sunday afternoon, this village was a ghost town so I admired if from the road as we drove to and from it! Katie need to find some facilites at this point - my app said there was nothing around (yes we have a toilet app) but there was the Golden Arches calling. We went to the nearest McDonalds, line was out the door, but right next door was a massive outlet shopping centre so we went there. After a look around, Katie buying a top she had been eyeing, me, a jacket you can’t get in Aus or NZ, we decided we wanted to head to the BnB we had booked.

Along the way we drove the motorway which saw the car hit 110km per hour and a crash barrier that was at direct eye level, that I really didn’t appreciate the height of while driving directly next too… I’ll take the cheese grater wire rope barriers back home thank you!
I thought it would be nice to stop off at San Gimignanello, a little village that looked nice on google… only to find out what was on google was for a different village. It was still nice to see the sunflower paddocks and a couple of deer as we parked the car.

We arrived at our BnB with the thought, we are out in the middle of no where! So quiet and peaceful and grapevines everywhere!

We checked in, had a good discussion on the area with the host & got ready for dinner at where she proposed, a 10minute walk away.
Upon walking to dinner as we left the BnB, I saw two cars slow down right near the intersection of the village we are in, I soon saw an adult Boar and a baby Boar run across the road, our host had mentioned them and said they are friendly if we meet them… won’t be finding out first hand though.
We got to the restaurant and they were full for the evening… now this is not an area you’d think that you’d have to book, and there is only two places in walking distance… this one, or a really expensive castle. We jumped into the car and drove to Ristorante Malborghetto, which the BnB host had also suggested and we got the last table available for the evening.
House wine was fantastic and every time a server comes over they say Hello and I reply Hello, how are you? This is obviously not custom here or done much as Katie mentioned every time I have done it the server always looks a bit puzzled why I am asking them how they are! I just want to make sure they are having a good day and won’t spit in my food!

Driving went well today, Katie didn’t try to use none existent pedals! Was stressful driving in the dark with Boar’s, wild cats & Deer knowing around.Read more