Monday 16th September 2024

This is my third time in Tuscany, and I have always visited Montalcino. This is because it is probably my favourite place on Planet Earth, the views from the ancient streets and alleys are incredible. And it makes very fine wine.

Previously, I have been here on Sundays, when the cyclists finish a day of riding by passing through the city gates, and it crowded.

So, how would it be early on Monday morning?

I say early, we were going to Florence, but laid in bed too late, really. So, a change of plan and a trip to some old haunts. Or friends.

We did get up, have coffee and breakfast, before loading the car, setting in the destination. One hour.

I engage all gears and we lurch off, up the gravel drive and onto the lane beyond.

Places change, but I find it hard to believe that Tuscany has changed that much in 16 years, so, we go a different way. Pass through the portal of a walled village, criss-cross the little-used railway, through olive groves, then up and up to the town.

We parked at the other end of the village, next to the church which is perched on the edge of a sheer drop of hundreds of feet to the lush countryside that spreads out like Google Maps below.

The car park was half full, so we park up. I go to visit the church, but there was a lady inside, so I don't linger, take a half dozen shots, and we leave. Back outside into the blinding bright sunshine.

Two guys were strimming grass, which was more herbs than grass, and smelt fantastic, they stopped for us to pass, so up the wide steps into the town, there this view opens up to our left.

I have taken it before, and better, but this'll do. The road seems to plunge down the sides of the cliffs to the farmland below, which then stretches to the horizon.

We try to find somewhere for breakfast. Second breakfast. But most places didn't start serving until midday. And it wasn't yet ten.

I then spotted and ice cream parlour, so we tottered down on the cobbles, and ordered two huge waffle cones and cappuccinos. Then sat down outside to watch the (Italian) world go by, which was at least stylish.

The ice cream was wonderful, of course.

Then there was a wine shop.

The local wine is Brunello, a dark and mysterious wine, and pricy. I say pricy, I baulk at paying a tenner for a bottle, but I stump up the cash for a box of three bottles, and a small phial of aged Balsamic Vinegar.

I won't say how much it was, but I had to explain to Jools.

Now laden down with bottles, we had to walk back to the car, which was pretty much all uphill, and steep uphill too.

The town was getting busy, so it seemed good to be going the other way, back to the car.

Once back, all hot and bothered, we programmed the car for Pienza, where we hoped to have lunch.

Montalcino is at 2,000 feet, this is what comes with owning a car with an altimeter, and to get to Pienza, we would have to get down to the level of the farmland way below, this is done at a crazy roundabout near the city gates, two exits near each other, but one goes down at about 1:4, and that's the way we had to go.

However, before that fun, the sat nav tried to lead us through the middle of the town, were what is a road and what isn't, isn't always easy to tell.

After ending up at two dead ends, we retraced our way back to the car park and round the edge of the town to the roundabout.

We made it across, and the road just dropped like a stone, some 1,500 feet in five minutes, where we joined the main road for a twenty minute blast, before turning off, and heading up, up, up again.

Through more olive groves and woodland to Pienza, which I always remembered as being quiet.

Not at one on a Monday, the new car park was nearly full, but we nabbed a spot, then waled to the start of the ancient town centre, where we were sucked in by a pizza place, where I ordered a diavalo hot and spicy pizza, and Jools ordered one with truffle shavings, which added €10 to the price.

The wait meant we could people watch, the fussy French couple opposite, the noise eight person American group who argued about spitting the bill and left no tip.

The food came, and was very welcome indeed, and not that spicy. And the unfiltered beer went down well.

Normally we would also have gone to Montepulciano to complete the hat trick, but it would be crazy busy, and the car park is a long hard walk up a cobbled street to the town a couple of hundred feet above.

I have been twice, and so thought I could live with missing a third, so we headed back home, it being a hot and humid day, and too hot to be walking in crowds looking into shops selling stuff we don't need.

Though there is always room for more cheese and wine.

Talking of wine, we needed some, as we were nearly out. And I remembered a couple of places near to our apartment, where we could buy some local.

So that's what we did, following signs across farmland and over drainage canals to a castle, where we two scruffs were very much out of place. But our money is as good.

We parked and the gardener told us where the shop was, so in the air-conditioned coolness, we bought a bottle of rose and a bottle of red and made good our escape, back to the main road and back to the old farm.

Too hot for butterfly chasing, so we stay inside, drinking wine and listening to the Clash. As you do.