duffys in Italy: Southern Tuscany in spring

Castello di Ripa d'Orcia--we stayed here. This is from a hike down to the river
where the vineyards are. Beautiful views, beautiful place if you can stand the
castle keepers (remember Marty Feldman in "Young Frankenstein??")

Well, we have really done some traveling and are far behind on posting! It started four weeks ago with a trip to Naples (forthcoming) for the weekend to see Naples and Pompeii, and then Debra and Lulu (from England) came for the week to visit. That Friday spring break started and the boys and I took the train to Milan to meet Fred...only his plane out was diverted to Pittsburgh instead of NYC...long story short, he met us the following night in Prague (to follow!) where we spent a long weekend, then flew back on EasyJet (cattle call style seating just like Southwest Airlines only people are much more aggressive!). What do you know, the national Italian MTV awards were right out in the Piazza with 20,000?? teenyboppers and music so loud it shook the 15th century window casings! The boys both invited friends to watch the whole thing from our windows and Fred and I protected our cochleas in the back rooms! The following day we rented a car and spent four nights in southern Tuscany.

So, the long and short of it is that we spent Easter in a 13th century castle (Castello di Ripa d'Orcia) in val d'Orcia. We were the eggs in the castle! Lo and behold, we found out shortly before going that Fred's old roommate from medical school (Jon Ark) was going to be only 15 km away in Montalcino at exactly the same time we were there so we joined them for dinner two nights and a tour of the winery Il Poggio Antico. They were staying at an Agriturismo, which I discovered is fairly common in this area...the vineyard owners set up apartments, old farmhouses, new condos so that tourists can stay right in the vineyards! Though I am not a wine drinker, I enjoyed the tour of the winery and and their olive pressing plant. This particular agriturismo had over 500 acres of which less than half was devoted to growing mostly the Brunello grape for which Montalcino is famous. There were also acres of olive groves. Compared to old days, this is all high tech now...I love the oak barrels from France at 70,000 euros apiece. But that's okay...the vintner gave us a tour and he was a fifth generation vintner. We learned what I'd heard in Florence: you only want to buy cold-pressed, extra virgin olive oil. Cold pressed for the obvious reasons the heat doesn't destroy the oil (light, heat, and moisture...that's why olive oil should be stored in a dark bottle so it doesn't oxidize) and "extra virgin" because it's the first press and they are allowed to use 10% of pits, etc. in just plain old "virgin" olive oil...which means there might be an extraction with petroleum products involved! We also learned the Brunello wines Fred bought have to age for at least five years.

But, I think the highlight was really the countryside. We had read about this area in National Geographic Traveler Tuscany (I highly suggest this as it's so complete) and the Tuscan Blue Guide (if anyone out there is thinking of going to Tuscany and touring around, I would highly suggest both...they complement one another with the Blue Guide also including some really out-of-the-way places to visit), GPS (ours didn't work), and a big map of the back roads of Tuscany. In spring, the fields are all shades of green and the red poppies start popping up everywhere. The grapevines are all espaliered and just starting to show some leaf action. There are miles of undulating hills with rows of poplars and cypress and acres of primly pruned vineyards everywhere. Not to mention, medieval castles on hilltops sprinkled everywhere!

I mentioned above we stayed in val d'Orcia in Castello di Ripa d'Orcia....the views from the castle were stunning and the castle itself was pretty self-contained with a little church, a bell-tower, etc. The castle keepers, unfortunately, seemed to have been locked in the castle far too long and leaned out of the belfry bellowing when we brought our friends in (for twenty minutes one morning just to see our place), insisting that they leave. Really, that was the only down side to the whole trip. The castle was in a wonderful location a few miles from San Quirico d'Orcia, a lovely little walled town which doesn't make it in the guidebooks. We were close to and visited the fortress towns of Montalcino and Montepulciano, both of which are known for their wines as well as Pienza, a beautiful Pope Pius II "designed" hill town which is also known for its peccorino cheese (sheep, that is) and Bagno Vignoni where the town square is a sulfur thermal bath from the Roman times! We also visited the Sant'Antimo abbey (the one Charlemagne stopped and had built in gratitude right where an angel appeared to him telling him to grind a local herb, now named "carolina", to cure his troops of a crippling mysterious disease on their way back from a conquest in Rome)...it was good Friday when we visited so it was interesting to see Christ on the cross draped in red. Nearby was the extremely quaint and quiet, pristine castle village called Castelnuovo del'Abate and we walked through the little single street one morning just as people were starting to come out of their enclaves. We also visited Abbazia di Monte Oliveto Maggiore (the other of southern Tuscany's great abbeys) which was surrounded by cypresses, olive groves and oak woods and has an incredible fresco cycle on its cloister walls by Luca Signorelli and Sodoma showing the life of St. Benedictine.

I mention all this to remember it...it truly is some of the most beautiful countryside ever and just a drive through this area (without even stopping off to peer into the castles and castle towns and abbeys) would have been enough!