A Week in Tuscany

Rented a car from Avis at a very reasonable $180/wk and headed down to a suburb of Montepulciano, about a 75 minute drive from Central Florence on the Autostrada (anyone see the film L'Autostrada with Anthony Quinn, Jr?  I didn't think so).  Got a great off season rate at an Agriturisimo (a concept that started out as farmers renting rooms, but has exploded into anyone who buys an old house in the country and turns it into a large B&B type of operation).  We've got a great 2 BR apartment at only about $70/night at a place called Casa della Querce, about 5 miles from Montepulciano on what pretty much amounts to a scary one to one and a half lane road; thankfully, not too much traffic on this rural road.  Views from our place are amazing and we've spent a couple of days just hanging around the apt.

Tuscany, for me, is really all about the food.  The towns are incredibly charming, but at some point they begin to look alike.  We had originally planned to visit village after village, but settled on three days of substantial tourism visiting such places as Pienza, Montalcino, San Quirico, Orvieto (which is actually in Umbria, about an hour's south of our apartment) and, of course, Montepulciano. Having already been to the very touristy Siena and San Gmignano, we decided not to make the full day excursion.  My favorites were the relatively untouristed San Quirico and Orvieto, which happened to be relatively quiet the day we visited.  Otherwise, the tourist industry is alive and well here and it sometimes seems that you hear more American English than Italian.  Guess the Siena Tourism board is doing a good job in the States.

The above is the view from our apartment; easy to see why one can get lazy and just sit outside sipping Limoncello and watching the world go by.....at least until dinnertime.  Not sure I've ever eaten better than here.  Will be hard to go back home and eat anything Italian.  Tuscany is renowned for its food and deservedly so.  All pasta is fresh and generally unusual local varieties (like Pici) that you'd almost never find at home (at least in Eugene).  I've been more impressed with the local table wines than some of the fancy export stuff they produce.  The local wines tend to be more full-bodied and I guess I'm not into some of the subtleties that others are.  There's no lack of US wine snobs here and one of my favorite comments came from a sommelier who was getting pressed by an American about which wine was her favorite.  After telling the guy it didn't matter and all that mattered was what HE liked, he pressed further and asked what she was having for dinner.  Her answer?  "Table wine.  This stuff you're tasting is too expensive and only for special occasions".  The guy was tasting a bottle that cost about $25. Favorite meal was a 3# Fiorentino (2" thick t-bone) at Osteria L'Acquacheta in Montepulciano.  What made the meal a favorite was the family style seating.  We wound up eating with a couple from California who had just transferred to Naples and another couple from Germany.  Lots of great house wine and since Suzee doesn't eat much beef, I pretty much polished off 2# by myself while probably raising my LDLs above 250.  Oh well, when in Rome....Our final meal here will be in a small village nearby at a little husband and wife trattoria which has the best food we've tasted in Italy; it's also the only place we've chosen to visit twice....Piccola Trattoria de Guastina.  The wife does the cooking and she's very creative, taking the traditional and elevating it a level with dishes like duck in olive oil with fresh herbs direct from her garden, fried pecorino (OPA!) with bacon, excellent desserts and I could go on and on.

Driving has been nothing but crazy.  Every Italian fashions themselves a great Formula One driver and this might be the only place where I'd be considered a polite, unagressive driver.  And I thought Morocco was going to be crazy in a few weeks (well, it probably will be).  I won't mind trading in the car for the train and a trip to Venice tomorrow.