It's a Wonderful Life in Europe: Truly Tuscany

In mid-October, our friends the Foreman's arrived from Colorado to Wiesbaden. They had never been to Italy, so we set out for the town of Siena in the heart of Tuscany. We flew into Bologna with our favorite ghetto discount airline, Ryanair.  (I have figured out the system for getting good seats with no baggage fees - quite a feat for this airline!) After staying the night in Bologna, we drove towards Siena and saw this vista above of the hilltown of Monteriggioni. This tiny walled town is no more than a few football fields wide. But its a great way to start a journey into Tuscany and get amazing views of the countryside.

All throughout this region there are hilltowns like this, fortified against intruders from the Etruscan and Roman period of history. Many of these towns date back to the 1st Century. Siena is practically unchanged since medieval times. It's about 40 miles south of Florence, much smaller and easier to explore on foot. The heart of the city is the Piazza del Campo, where the bricks are patterned into nine different sections representing the medieval Government of Nine. There's also a famous horse race, The Palio, that runs around this Piazza each year. Each horse represents one of the 17 neighborhoods. It's run since 1310!  Jockeys ride bareback and underhandedness is common - like drugging the horse and kidnapping the jockeys!

Of course, there is fabulous food and endless shopping shopping shopping! Leather purses, boots, and shoes are everywhere. We could only bring so much back, because we brought an extra bag for take-homes.  We all stuffed our one bag limit, then split up the goods into our one extra spare bag (we succumbed to paying the extra baggage fee of 60Euro....bummer. Thats half a pair of boots right there!)

After a day in Siena, we traveled the countryside to Montepulciano and Montalcino, home of the famous Brunello di Montalcino wine. Montepulciano is also a hilltown surrounded by cypress trees. Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, a robust red wine, is the town's claim to fame.  This area is south of the Chianti region. Once again, great food, wine tasting, and shopping is everywhere. And we did it all !

Montalcino is proud of their wine and the price tag proves it.  The area is covered by vineyards growing the Sangiovese Grosso grapes used in the Brunello wines. We hiked up to the 14th century fortezza (fort) for some Brunello wine tasting by the glass. After some great tasting, the Foreman's decided to ship some of their favorite vintages back home. We can only hope they will share with us when we visit them in Boulder (haha).

The next day we spent back in Siena on foot. We visited St. Catherine of Siena memorial who was instrumental in convincing the French pope to relinquish his papacy to Rome. And the highlight of Siena was the Duomo which holds sculptures by Michelangelo and Bernini.

On our way back to Bologna, we stopped in one of my favorite hilltowns - San Gimignano. It's called "Medieval Manhattan" because of all the towers. At one time there were over 70 towers erected by each family to be used as safe refuge from enemies and partly to bolster egos of each family. "My tower's bigger than yours!"  Only 15 towers remain. After the black death of 1348, Florence took over as rulers. Today San Gimignano is mostly tourist trade and it's known for its hand-painted pottery (because I have 2 lemon pieces).