Trequanda, Apr 4

Today we wake, much refreshed from yesterday’s illness scare! What we both thought might be another Covid scare, it turns out we think we had a short bout of food poisoning from some bad ground beef (that we watched being ground just for us!). So we’re back in good shape and we have breakfast and head off in search of adventure! We find Pienza and tour a little bit of the city and end up in Montalcino for a wine tasting and tour that came with our current lodging. Another old winery and we are very amazed at what we see in their cellars. Fattoria dei Barbi!

The doorways are barely large enough for a human to fit through and I have to ask our guide, Irene, how they got wine barrels in the cellar that are 8-10 feet wide and as tall? She tells me they assembled the barrels in place! Over 100 of them! We then all go into the restaurant and taste some of their wines. Good in their own right but not California wine by a long stretch!

Our tour guide, Irene, is one of the most personable we have met. In the wine cellars, she takes us into a set of rooms that store wines as old as 100 plus years! We ask her if she will open one and she smiles at us. Not to be done but hey, it was worth the ask!

We drive on and find ourselves in the heart of town in Montalcino. we tour the Duomo we find there and acquire more ceiling photos, LOL. As we step out, we see a couple of people walking down a path from what looks like a castle and I ask them what is up there. “I don’t know, I am from Montelcino!” Hey wait, we are IN Montelcino! Oh well, shaking my head, we walk on. The Tramontana winds make it feel extremely cold here! We drive away again and soon find ourselves in Siena. Another interesting old little town! We find yet another place to have a wine tasting and we indulge again! Caffe di Fondesco!

So we find our way back to our Villa after driving through the Orcia Valley and take a couple hour nap. Then, a little after 7PM, we head out in search of dinner. Have I mentioned that in Italy, restaurants close at 3PM and open back up after 7PM for no one goes out to dinner before that! We find a place called “Piccolo” and we both have a seafood pasta dish that is fantastic and cooked perfectly! We are the only patrons in the restaurant and the owner comes and chats with us about life in general and the conversation is fun!

Then we drive back to our Villa, get a roaring fire going (remember the heating system isn’t working!) and relax for the night with a bottle of good Italian wine!

Good night!