Christmas in Tuscany, Part 3

Christmas was now ages ago, but I'm determined to get this blog finished, mainly because it's my own journal of our experiences! So here is the third installment of our time in Tuscany, and the fourth and final will be coming soon.

Laundry and Christmas decorations hang from the
walls in the narrow streets of San Gimignano

The day after Christmas we picked up a rental car on the edge of Florence and drove south. It's less than 2 hours from Florence to our destination, Chianciano Terme (Kee-on-chonno Tāre-ma), so we had time for a stop in lovely San Gimignano. This was our introduction to medieval walled hill towns, of which we saw quite a few over the course of the week! It was a glorious sunny day and the highlight of our visit was lunch al fresco at Locanda di Sant Agostino. This was also one of our better meals in Tuscany. Ahhhhh.

Glorious Tuscany: amazing food, wine, stone walls and sunshine

Sunny tables: taken. Shady tables: nope.

It's hard to see, but the man reaching across the table is feeding scraps of
food to his little dog, which is sitting in its own chair just to the right of the
man's hand.

After a lovely afternoon leisurely strolling around the city, we drove the rest of the way to Chianciano Terme. Here we met Monica, our wonderful hostess for the week at La Locanda degli Artisti. I had booked a stylishly decorated quadruple room in the bed and breakfast, but as luck would have it, Monica also owns a basic two-bedroom apartment across the street with much more space, and she offered it to us for the same price. We opted for the additional space; that gave us two separate bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, and a large living area with a couch and a big table to play games on. Monica had made us a dinner reservation at 7:30 (the time the restaurants open!) at Il Buco, but we were so full still from our lunch that we really didn't want to eat again. If not for the language barrier we would have called to cancel the reservation, but as it was we showed up for dinner and I'm so glad we did. I ordered the traditional Tuscan soup called Ribollita, made with kale, bread and beans. It was so good that I craved it for the rest of the trip but never got another chance to order it. :(

Chocolate cake, apple torte, fresh croissants

The next morning we were in for a treat. Monica is an amazing cook and spoils her breakfast patrons. If you read the first part of my blog about Tuscany you know that in Florence we had packaged rolls and crackers at our bed and breakfast. But Monica baked us fresh cakes every day: lemon, chocolate, apple, and more. There were always fresh croissants from a local bakery, plenty of fruit, hot chocolate, tea or coffee, yogurt, juice, granola. Plus after the first day, there were always the leftovers of the day before's cake! The breakfast was so extensive that we got in to the habit of eating a huge breakfast, relaxing over a huge lunch around 3:00 or 3:30 and then skipping dinner. This was great as a financial strategy but it didn't give us as many opportunities to eat amazing Italian food!

My violin lamp

After our wonderful breakfast we headed to Montepulciano. This was a beautiful town with cute shops, nice views, lots of wine and the last day of a charming Christmas market. We stayed all day. I wanted to shop and the kids wanted to go into the Medieval Torture Museum, so we were happy to split up. At the Christmas market I bought some locally made soaps, and a bracelet from a woman who makes jewelry by combining crochet with beads and metalwork. I had never seen anything like it. At one of the shops in town I bought a lamp in the shape of a violin, made, in collaboration with an artist, by people undergoing rehabilitation. There's not a great place for it in our house here, but I can find a special place to put it in our future US home.

Italian Christmas market

Torture chair!

Reunited with Dan and the kids, we had some lunch and then toured the few sights in town. Then it was time to try the Vino Nobile, which the town is famous for. We were following the Rick Steves Guide to Tuscany for most of our trip, since we generally like his approach to touring and both of our hotels had his books. He recommends tasting the wine at the Contucci Enoteca, where the friendly character Adamo presides over the tastings. Rick Steves says he has been checking in on Adamo here for more than 10 years, and the book includes a picture of the two of them. So when we walked in, I recognized Adamo immediately. We waited our turn for his attention, and then I greeted him by name. He doesn't speak English, but as soon as I said "Rick Steves" he burst into a wide grin and offered us wine. I showed him the book where his picture is, and he thought I wanted to take a picture with him! So here we are:

Adamo and me

The wine was good, so of course we bought some.

Nativity set on a bed of wine corks

Next stop was the Cantina de'Ricci. The highlight here was the wine cellar, which you walk through on your way to the tasting room. You go down, down, down huge flights of stone stairs and then walk through underground hallways with towering ceilings and gigantic casks of wine. It was truly incredible but it was dark so we don't have many good pictures. Google it if you're interested! We bought a bottle of wine there which we drank last night and it survived the journey home very well!

Underground cellar at Cantina e'Ricci

The evening was chilly and they lit huge fires for people to
stand around with a drink and warm themselves. That's
my new bracelet on my right wrist. :)

The Christmas market is lit up in the middle of the
main square

Fog rolls in over the low valley as the sun sets
in Montepulciano

Sunrise from a viewpoint in Chianciano Terme

The next morning, December 28, was a Monday and I went running for the only time on this trip. I ran into the old town of Chianciano Terme, which was stony and hilly like all the other old Tuscan towns. I'm afraid I didn't do too much running, because the sun was rising and it was foggy and as the sun rose the hill towns in the distance gradually began to appear in silhouette from out of the fog. I was mesmerized watching it.

Chianciano Terme is famous for its healing thermal baths, so after another hearty Monica breakfast we tried one of them out. We spent several hours at Piscine Termali Theia where, strangely, you are required to wear a swim cap. Note: if you visit there, bring your own! We were forced to buy ugly striped caps for several euros each. The water was hot and great for relaxing, but not so great for playing. The kids got overheated and while there were some faucets and fountains, there was nothing really to play with, so they got bored.

One of the outdoor pools

In the afternoon we split up. Dan went out for a half day photography tour. He met up with a guy who drove him to several scenic spots and they chatted and took pictures. The kids and I went for a horseback ride, by special request from Haley. It was both kids' first time riding horses off the property of a horse ranch. Carter rode his horse by himself and Haley rode her own horse but was led by the guide by a rope. While the man I booked the ride with spoke English, our guide did not, so the whole thing was a little unorganized, from deciding where to ride (it was too foggy in the valley so we had to drive to another location to get to higher ground), to saddling up, to a completely silent horseback ride. I had pictured riding through the Tuscan countryside, but instead we rode on trails through some woods with bare trees and never really got to any place with a view. I wouldn't do it again.

All my pictures are blurry and not well framed, because our
guide didn't exactly cater to our photographic needs.
I think the kids had fun though.

There was no huge afternoon lunch this day, so we had to go out to dinner! We had a very tasty meal at a place just a few minutes from our B&B. Dan and I both had a dish of pasta and boar meat (common in Tuscany) in a Vino Nobile wine sauce. I enjoyed my dinner but by the time we got home, just a few minutes away, I was feeling sick. And not more than an hour or two later I was violently ill. Like really, really sick. Like vomiting-and-sweating-out-of-every-pore-and-lying- exhausted-with-my-face-against-the-cold-bathroom-floor sick. I won't offer any more details, but thank goodness we had opted for the large apartment so I could be quarantined on one side and everyone else could have some space on the other side. The next day even though I had stopped throwing up, my stomach still hurt and I felt terrible. So Dan and the kids went off to explore without me and I spent most of the day sleeping. They didn't return until late in the day and should I be offended or jealous that they had a great time and in fact said that it was one of their favorite days of the vacation??? They went out driving without much of a destination in mind and just stopped and explored wherever they felt like it. They explored ruins of an old fortress, discovered hot springs in the woods, and had another lunch al fresco, all without Mom who seems to usually have an agenda of some sort.

Carter enjoys the view from the hill town fortress

These two!

I woke up the next morning still with a stomach ache, but after I was up and about it finally felt better, although I still didn't feel hungry. For the rest of our trip we brought a trash can with us every time we left the house, just in case someone else suddenly came down with the bug while we were out, but thankfully no one ever did. We headed to Fosso Bianco, an outdoor natural hot springs in Bagno San Filippo, not too far from where we were staying. The kids and Dan had stumbled across it and "discovered" it the previous day (it was on MY list of things to do), but they hadn't gone for a swim. We spent the morning soaking in the warm thermal pools, which felt heavenly to my aching body.

Balena Bianca, The White Whale
Mineral deposits from the hot springs
We all decided it looked more like a walrus.

Cooling down in the waterfalls

Not too crowded. Plenty of room for a hot soak.

Free sulphuric mud treatment!

Family soak

Haley walks amid the thermal chutes

When we left the hot springs we went on to see the small town of Bagno Vignoni. It has an interesting park area with chutes of warm water streaming around the ruins of ancient baths. And in the center of town is a large thermal pool, with shops and apartments built on either side. You aren't allowed to swim in this pool anymore, but it sure is pretty. We got our lunch from a very popular deli that sold take-away platters of meats, breads and cheeses along with wines by the bottle or glass. Not knowing what to order from the myriad pinkish slabs of meat and whitish rounds of cheese, we asked the lady behind the counter to just fix us a plate of stuff and then we followed the crowd to an outdoor seating area. Slices of preserved meat didn't exactly appeal to me as some of the first food to eat after a stomach illness, but I ate some, and Dan and the kids felt like true Italians with their platters.

Haley looks through the arch at Bagno Vignoni's pool

A very Italian lunch

A not-very-crowded street in Pienza

After lunch we drove to Pienza, known for being a model Renaissance town. It was designed by Pope Pius II, whose hometown it was, and laid out according to newly developed Humanist concepts of urban design. Because of its Renaissance design and its influence on subsequent urban design in Italy and beyond, the historic center of Pienza is a UNESCO World Heritage site. I read about the placement of the buildings in the square and the precise lines of perspective that were used to lay the whole thing out, but I can't say I fell in love with Pienza. It's a pretty little town with some nice views but it wasn't our favorite. Dan and Haley left to take pictures of the sunset in the country side, while Carter and I looked for a gelato shop, which was surprisingly hard to find on this cold December day (I think there are a lot more gelato shops in the summertime). I also bought some food souvenirs: a couple of packs of Pici, the local Tuscan pasta which is like a fat spaghetti, and a couple of packages of Ribollita seasoning for homemade soup.

One of Dan's sunset pictures. Looks like a painting!

The back end of Pienza's Duomo. See the big vertical cracks in the
building? Pope Pius insisted on building the church in this
location on the edge of the cliff, and he insisted on
designs that favored symmetry over architectural
best practices. So since about 10 years after it was built, the
church has been cracking and threatening to fall off the cliff,
and generations of engineers have been working to shore up
the building. You can feel the building sloping sharply downward
when you walk inside behind the altar.