Day 28 June 19, 2023 (Montepulciano)
Took the train this morning from Florence to the town of Chiusi to pick up our rental car. Thank goodness Italians drive on the right (correct, lol!) side of the road. Since I am the world’s worst navigator, I drove while John directed. Trust me, it works better this way! After a few wrong turns, we headed in the direction of Montepulciano, which is only about 20 miles from Chiusi. The scenery is lovely, but I’m sure I stuck out like a sore thumb by driving the speed limit as I had cars passing me. I don’t mind speeding a little, but in another country, not so much. The last thing we need is a ticket.
Our host was able to let us in early, so we were on the way to meet him. Let’s just say our GPS was not very helpful at times and we were all over the place. Trying to pay attention to the different traffic signs and making sure we weren’t going where we weren’t supposed to (which we did, and I hope we don’t get ticketed for that!) was a challenge. We finally were able to meet up with the host, parked our car and he drove us up to the BNB. If you are not a resident of the town, you cannot drive/park in/through the town. Our host is allowed only one vehicle (he has two) to be parked in the town. We made the mistake of driving through a restricted area, which is part of the town, but quickly turned around and drove out. They do have cameras everywhere so again, fingers crossed we don’t get fined for doing that! I must admit, some choice words were used, but we survived.
We got settled in and then went looking for food. The town is quaint with beautiful little shops, and it is not overly crowded, which is a nice change. We stopped for lunch at a little shop and had a panini and a drink. The next thing was to find the grocery store. The local ones we have found in Italy are called Conad. I have jokingly been calling it either Conan (the barbarian) or Gonad (hehe) to help remember the name. John searched for Conan and wasn’t coming up with anything, wonder why???? We found the Conad, which is one of the nicest/largest ones we’ve encountered so far and got supplies for the next couple of days. We unloaded, headed back out, and had three different wine tastings. The third one has a cellar that is 700 years old and is huge, running under several buildings and the street, that you go through and see the barrels along with some other neat artifacts and then dumps you into their wine tasting room. The pours are not big at all, basically just a taste, which is good since there are so many for you to try. Of course, we bought something at all three, so we are good to go for a couple of days, lol! After the tastings, we were ready to head back to the room and we decided to cook in tonight. We had picked up some shrimp, salmon, risotto, and zucchini so John worked his magic. Tomorrow is just exploring, and we have a scheduled wine tasting at 5 p.m.
The link for our place, which is the nicest we’ve had so far! https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/19617012?source_impression_id=p3_1687241757_fm9wetc2VU0%2FGrVu
Miles walked – 4.61 Ciao!
