Day 3 started off in a very healthy way - I set the alarm for 6, work up at 6:30 and went out for a 4 or 5 km run listening to the "Heart Like A Wheel" album by Linda Ronstadt.
After a shower and breakfast, Marta's daughter Lara and I set off to find a bank that would redeem her Amex travelers checks on our way to Montepulciano, where we would meet up with Wally's son Mike and his wife, Lisa.
Lara and I are proving to be kindred spirits in the "follow-your-nose, toss-the-plan" approach to travel. We were not successful finding a place to take the Amex traveler's checks, another sign of Amex's decline, even though we stopped in 4 different banks.
(A funny aside: All the Italian banks have the most extraordinary security system for entering and exiting the bank, and it is not for the claustrophobic. You walk up to the door and are presented with a glass cylinder/sliding door. You have to press a red button to open the sliding door, step in, rotate 180 degrees and then wait ..... for up to 10 seconds .... before the sliding door opens to let you in the bank.
One person at a time. The whole thing cracked me up, but thinking seriously I imagine they didn't do this for jollies, so it must be necessary.)
Onward to Montepulciano: we lost so much time trying to get those damn checks redeemed and then I pulled a boneheaded moment of the day that cost us more time, so that Mike and Lisa beat us to Montepulciano even though we had a good hour and a half start on them. More on that later.
Montepulciano is set up top of a hill, like a lot of the places I've seen so far in Umbria and Tuscany. Steep, steeeeeep roads from the walls up to the top. One thinks about the donkeys from days of yore that broke their backs/died young from hauling materials up those roads.
We met up just as Mike and Lisa were starting to walk thru the town gate that separates the drivable approach to the pedestrian-only area inside the wall. I dropped Lara off and parked the car, then met them up a good uphill walk to lunch. Lunch was quite fun - funky little place with a great view of the plains below, excellent food, nice server, and quite a character of a proprietor who walked around singing a 1950s Italian song (name I cannot remember for the life of me) and kissy-hugging all the women, touchy-touchy all the men. Fun, and if it was not sincere, he was a good actor. Used my phone app to confirm with our waitress that service was included, getting a blush and a giggle out of her, but leaving her a few euros richer anyway.
We climbed up steep, twisty alleyways to the good view from the city, then up to the cathedral.
Very nice cathedral, was able to get photos of lots of paintings. I observed a *free* winetasting - did I mention it was free? - and Lara and I decided to give that a try, while Mike and Lisa ran back to get their car before parking expired and headed off to enjoy quiet time checking out a few small towns on the way home while Grandma Marta and Grandpa Wally supervised daughter Alyssa's pool time.
Montepulciano is known for its vino nobile Montepulciano wine, and there are "Etruscan caves" all around the city where wineries have set up huge casks to make wine, and wine shops selling Montepulciano wine dot the streets of town. Hat tip to the never-anything-but-fabulous Mary Anne McDavit for the suggestion to go to Montepulciano in the first place, intriguing me with stories of good wine, bring your own storage container and have it tapped from the barrel for you, etc.). Alas, forgot my 20-gallon jug, and so we had to buy wine the old fashioned way after the really interesting walk (not really a tour) down three flights of stairs *inside* the mountain into the cave where some really humongo casks were set up holding the 2011 wine. The guy who gave us the wine tasting told us that the winery had been in existence since the 14th century, and had only recently been sold by the last surviving family member to a commercial wine enterprise. We tried a couple wines, bought a really nice 2007 Montepulciano reserve wine for 30 euros, and a 2009 Tuscan blend wine (San Giovese, Merlot, Cab Sauvignon - yum!)
No real adventures on the way home, but we stopped on the way in Pienza to find a birthday cake for Wally (long story) before Lara had to get home to cook.
Dinner was delish, and we had a nice night under the stars going around the table talking about what was new in our lives and what we saw on the horizon. Nice evening, and particularly cool to hear so many interesting things opening up for Mike and Lisa and daughter Alyssa; Steve and Debbie, their soon-to-wed daughter Erica, and irrepressible son Brian; Kryssie, Dan and son Ethan (news of the other kids duly reported, so don't feel left out Matt, Amanda and Sabrina); my cohort-in-crime Lara; and of course the raison d'voyage, Mitch and Amy.
After dinner and maybe a few too many glasses of wine (though I alternated with water!!!), I sat down to do my blog thing and write a few emails, which leads me to my moments for the day:
Moment of grace: My niece Lizzy sneaks in and claims the prize by sending me the most beautiful email (I miss you too, honey - but will see you on the holidays!), though sister-in-law Tracy was definitely in the running with some nice photos of my nieces and a wish to be remembered (duly delivered) to Marta and Wally.
My "Jim screw-up moment" -- has to be my cockiness at using the GPS to find my way to different places. I had been taking short cuts entering the city, but skipping the street and taking one at random from the list the GPS offered. This had actually worked pretty well on my drive from Rome to Vescado di Murlo, but today it failed rather spectactularly. It turns out that Montepulciano is not just the name of the city, but is also the name of a larger region (sort of the difference between Erie city proper and Erie county). We wound up about 15 clicks away from Montepulciano city before we realized my stupid error, and had to work our way back to meet Mike and Lisa.
I will tantalize you with the parting thought that Lara and I get into more trouble and I have a bigger bone-headed moment on Day 4. But for now, ..... ciao!
Pictures, per usual, in Picasa
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