We slept like babies! Our little part of the farmhouse is so cozy, and there are these amazing old wood shutters on the windows that make the room so dark. Breakfast was a typical Italian one, with lots of sweet things and cappuccinos. This small meal provided all the energy we needed to tackle the day.
During breakfast, we made our plans for the day, an exploratory journey to a town called Montalcino. This is one of the medieval towns that sit on the top of a hill. Of course, coming from Texas, their hills are our mountains and we were not ready for what was in store for us.
The town itself was around 25 minutes from where we were staying, and of course, we were using navigation apps to get us along the way. What we would soon find out once we set off was that the “quickest” route was through an old gravel road that was cut through the Tuscan countryside. This “road” is about 1.5 lanes wide at the best of times, and a great opportunity to practice your ability to pray while a crazy Italian is barreling toward you. After the longest 10-minute drive, we were back on the pavement and my blood pressure returned to a normal level, at least for now.
I spent a bit of time before we left working on locating the parking for the city as I had heard that it can be a bit tricky to find one. The reality is that these spots are not only small, but also apparently everyone wants them. To make matters worse, there is a fun thing called a ZTL zone in every city. This is basically a place set aside to prevent tourist from driving into these tight areas that are designed only for the residents. Unfortunately, it is easy to miss the sign or get turned around and without much effort they had pictures of your license and you get a nice fine as a gift when you get home. For us, we had to just loop around for a good fifteen minutes before we were able to stalk an old grandmother to her car and grab her spot.
The town itself started off nice, mostly because we were at the top of the hill. As we made our way down, the writing was on the wall that getting back to the car was going to be a beast of a climb. Fortunately for us, we were able to get into a delightful little resuraunt with a killer view for lunch. For most meals, Lindsey and I compete for who had the better meal. For this one, I think I certainly won it!
We walked around town for a bit just going down alleys that looked interesting and managed to find a castle that I am sure if one of the key features of the town. After having a wonderful call with our kiddo at the top of the castle, we made our way back to the farmhouse to take a little nap and get ready for dinner.
For dinner we went to Pienza to a restruant that our hotel recommended. It turns out that this is one of the main ones that the locals go to since we were the only ones who spoke English. The meal was amazing, I had duck ragù and a second dish with roasted rabbit, and Lindesy got bruschetta and gnocchi. It was really tough to know who won as my rabbit and her gnocchi wereboth fantastic. It was pouring rain when we got out of dinner so we headed back home and did not have a chance to walk around town. Little did we know that the next day would more than likely be one of the best days of our entire trip.
