RICK STEVES SENT US TO MONTEPULCIANO! (Friday, 9-3-2021)

Today, John was called by Rick Steves to head to the walled city of Montepulciano to take a FREE tour and wine tasting at the Contucci Winery.  It was another two hour road trip that included, of course, a million hairpin turns.  They say it was beautiful.  I wouldn’t know. (🤢)

We arrived in one piece and were delighted to find it to be another walled city that had a bit more to see than Lucca!

We stopped in the main square at a delightful cafe where Mike and John enjoyed lunch.  Patte and I enjoyed people watching!

There was an ANCIENT Catholic Church, St. Mary of the Assumption, in the square that we found interesting.

In all his childhood years of church decorating, John had NEVER seen anything like this inside a Catholic Church.

Finally, it was time for our 3:00 tour of the Contucci Winery followed by wine tasting.  Can we just say,

John was ultra excited! 

The winery was really cool, however, it wasn’t guided so we didn’t learn a thing.  Remember, it was a FREE tour.

At last it was time for our tasting!  We were excited to try the Contucci wines!  We sampled three of their bottles and, would you believe, none of them knocked our socks off?  We left empty handed.  (Sorry, Rick!)

We looked at the gorgeous views and then headed toward our car.  

We walked past a little wine shop that offered tasting.  We went inside and tried some of the Gattavechi wines!  We liked them enough to purchase a couple of bottles!

We stopped at a Lidl store (much like our Aldi) and picked up groceries for our time in Tuscany.

And then we searched for a close by restaurant.  It was about 6:30, we were hungry and we were all ready to get out of that car!  Yes, the ride back was the same as the ride there. (🤢)  We stopped at the first restaurant we passed.  It was FULLY BOOKED.  We spotted a restaurant across the street, so we drove over to it.  Let’s just say, it didn’t have a lot (any) ambiance.  Mike went inside to see if it was even open, came back to the car and said, “Well, she can seat us immediately.  But if the fact that there is not a single person here is any indication of what the food is like….”  We decided to give it a try.  What can I say, we were hungry!

There was a factory to the left of us.  There was a busy road to the right of us.  We chose a table out on what looked like part of the gravel parking lot.  Our waitress, Sylvia, who turned out to be the 26-year-old OWNER, looked like a tatted up biker chick. To say we were a bit worried is an UNDERSTATEMENT! And then we all fell IN LOVE with her!  She was an absolute delight!  We found out her Mama was the cook and when she saw us come in and sit down she explained, “They are going to eat NOW?”  Apparently we were the FIRST to arrive (it was 6:30) and she doesn’t get busy until around 8:00PM!  I’ll tell you what, Mama cooked a mighty fine dinner for us!  Thank you, Mama!

                                                                CIAO FOR NOW!