Day 13 Adventures in Tuscany

Today we loaded our schedule with some hill towns toward our south and got off to an early start.  Our first stop was Montepulciano which is another of the walled hill towns we are focusing on.  It was just waking up when we arrived so we were able to park easily and roam its streets with out any hassle.  It is a lovely town sporting the rock walls which line the streets from which small shops and trattoria poke through.  We explored the city for about an hour and a half and then it was back to the car and off to Pienza another similar town.  After another hour of walking we had lunch just outside the city walls then we were back in the car and off to Montalcino.  This walled town has the most realistic castle we have seen on this trip.  The Italians call it a fortezza (fortress).  It like many of its sister cities is a classic stone walled city.  There must have been a lot of fighting going on during the time these cities were constructed to have put so much effort in to constructing such robust walls and buildings.   Well it is a nice series of relics for us to see today.  After touring the town and a climb up to the battlements of the fortezza we were back in the car and on our way to Siena.  This town is a masterpiece of history.  Due to the size of the town the walls were not as much a focal point as with other hill towns.  This town is blessed with a Duomo (Church) that is breathtakingly beautiful.  Layer upon layer of alternating black and white marble continue up the entire height of the building and the attached tower.  The interior columns repeat the same black and white pattern and support a ceiling so tastefully and lavishly adorned to make it a unique experience.  We visited the baptistry and the crypts which are also housed in different parts of the same gigantic structure.  We then climbed to the top of a tower to get the panoramic view of Siena.  From there we could see the Piazza del Campo which is the large open plaza in the middle of town where the famous horse race takes place once a year.   We walked down the the plaza and had a leisurely dinner at one of the restaurants on the plaza.  That was a pretty full day so we headed back to our villa for the night.

Chris - Not much to add to Paul's descriptions of the wonderful hill (sometimes felt more like mountain) towns. Of all the towns we saw today my favorite place to wander was Montepulciano as it was quaint, colorful and had lots of stores to visit and things to look at. There were lots of flags, flowers and gorgeous views. Pienza was interesting as I had read that "Romeo and Juliet" and "The English Patient" were both filmed there so it was fun imagining where all those scenes took place. Also Pienza had a perimeter street that you could walk along that had all panoramic views of the countryside. Siena's Duomo looked completely different from any others we'd seen with the Gothic and the black and white alternating colors Paul described above. It gets my vote for "Best Save of the Day" when after parking at the bottom of the hill (MAJOR hill) and beginning to walk UP to town we happened upon a series of escalators that took us to the top!!! After walking and climbing through three other hill towns today, the escalators earned Siena my favorite town today!!

Tomorrow - Who knows. After our best weather day in almost 10 days, as there was no rain or threat of rain, tomorrow we are back to rain, which is why we did as many towns as we did today. There are plenty more to explore, so we'll see what the weather brings.