Montepulciano

As I said in my last entry, I woke at 5.30am and have these amazing photos of the sunrise. I typed up those last notes and then, feeling tired still, despite a good long sleep, I snuggled back down again and slept until my alarm went off at 7.30am. And after a breakfast of cereal, fruit and yoghurt, and bread with a boiled egg, ham and cheese and two cups of coffee, I figured I needed to conquer this last hill.
But, true to form, I couldn't figure out the map. For some reason I cannot figure out whether to turn left or right. I turned the map around several times, had the hotel behind me and still couldn't work out which way to go. So I just started walking. Well the hill is on my right, so it would make sense to walk that way, but there is a quieter route, but for the life of me I can't find it. Anyway I manage to find a way up and it's steep, but achievable and afterall it was still early so not too hot at that stage. But what happened of course was I didn't enter the town centre on the road that Alan had suggested, so for the rest of the day I was kind of upside down and back to front. But never to mind, at least I knew vaguely where I was and so long as I headed back to the cathedral at the end of the day and headed back down the same way I knew I would be okay. And so I treated myself to a coffee in the piazza and sat and enjoyed some people watching and took a few photos. I went into two churches plus the cathedral – the cathedral was huge, and amazing. And I wandered up hill, down hill, up stairs, down stairs, down little lanes, and back up another, and had the most amazingly wonderful time, just enjoying being there and taking lots and lots of photos, to try and capture just how magnificent and beautiful this place is.
I found a wine outlet advertising that they could ship anywhere in the world, and I became their first customers to have wine and olive oil shipped to NZ. I tasted some wines, and they suggested some others, and to start with I was going to have 6 bottles altogether and then I thought – what about some olive oil, so we changed it to four bottles of wine and two of oil. Two totally different types of oil. And because I am shipping it out of Europe, I got 16% tax deducted off the wine and 4% tax off the oil. And the cost of the shipping was more than the cost of the wine but I just couldn't carry any more stuff, so decided, to hell with it, I want the wine for my dinner party, so just get it.
I was tempted to get some ceramics sent home as well, but again the cost of the shipping was going to be more than the products so I decided against that. I will just have to be content with my house number and my bruschetta plate.
I found this awesome place to have lunch – the girl asked if I wanted to sit out in the sun or downstairs, and I figured that downstairs was going to be nice and cool, and so opted to go down these incredibly stair stairs into what felt almost like a cave. It was lovely and cool, and I was intrigued with the place and how you would actually build something like this, and of course took a photo to remind myself of it. Here I enjoyed some melon and proscuitto and a beer, followed by a coffee. Just a nice light lunch.
I found the shoe shop (the factory outlet the same as the one in Pienza and was hopeful of some shoes in my size, but alas, all small here too. When I asked for shoes in my size the girl looked at my feet, shook her head and looked stunned – okay so I have big feet – I need them that size to hold me up you stupid girl. I would fall over if I had tiny wee feet like yours. Hers must have been about size 4 I think. So dainty!!! Oh to have cinderella size feet.
So sorry Roxy, shoes are off the list. And the hand made ones I saw in Cortona, were a strange shape. Again very small, amazingly beautiftul, but I'm sure my feet aren't that shape.
So I had to be content with a hand painted batik style Italian silk scarf. And of course the added bonus here is that it is light enough to carry home.
So a few more photos, a couple more wee souvenir purchases and I headed back down the hill to Albergo San Biagio.
And now time to rearrange my suitcase. My cycling gear to the bottom of the bag, my bag of maps and brochures and other bits of paper that I have collected in the suitcase and out with my overnight bag which I will use as a handbag for the next part of my trip, and all my souvenirs and purchases safely stored in between the clothes I am not going to need in Geneva. Washing up to date, spending money and bacnk card balanced and now sitting on the balcony of my room trying to decide whether I should walk up the road to the restaurant, for a pizza, or whether I should just make do with the couple of peaches and couple of nectarines that I bought at the supermarket on the way back to the hotel.
Oh yes that reminds me, last night I picked up a couple of things I needed at the supermarket, and also picked out some fruit and fronted up to the checkout expecting to have the fruit weighed at the checkout like we do at home. The checkout girl waved her hands about, and then picked it all up and disappeared. And so I held up the queue while she went and weighed the stuff. I didn't know whether I should follow her or not, so just stood there waiting. She came back with sticky tickets on the peaches and apricots and smiled sweetly and made some indication that probably meant I was supposed to do that before I got to the checkout.
So today, I asked first and she (same girl as last night) waved her hands about and pointed over to the corner where there were some scales with a whole host of nubers on it. So I stood and looked for a moment or two and figured out that each of the different fruits had a product code – i.e. peaches were 38, apricots were 35 and nectarines were 40. So I put the peaches on the scales, pushed 38 and walla – out prints a ticket saying pesca .55cents. And so I put on the apricots and pushed 35 and wow here comes the ticket for the apricots. How clever is that. Just starting to figure out the systems and it is time to think about heading home.
And so with my bag all packed all I need now is a good nights sleep and to prepare myself for a six hour train ride to Milan. And this hotel here does not have wi-fi so I can't check out a hotel in advance, so I am going to have the same problem as I had when I arrived in Florence. Darn. But I will stay there two nights (Wednesday and Thursday) and then I will catch the train to Geneva, and I am already booked into the hotel there. Oh heck – where are the details for that. One of the disadvantages of this wee computer is that I can't print off stuff, and the other disadvantage is that I didn't load old emails on to it before I left home. I hope I have the name of the hotel written somewhere, or I am going to be wandering around Geneva like a lost puppy.
Oh well, well finish off here, its nearly 8pm. Still very light and still incredibly warm. There was a bit of thunder late this afternoon, but it didn't bring any rain with it today. I wonder what Milan will bring.