Agriturismo Redux

              The agriturismo is beautiful.  Our apartment is nestled in a vineyard and olive         groves.

The apartment is more like a townhouse with bedrooms & bathroom upstairs, kitchen & living area downstairs.

          If we had an Italian grandmother, it would feel like we are staying at her house.

Lots of charm.

                                          The girls explore the vineyard and olive groves.

There are chickens roaming around and the homing pigeons are pure white (prettier than you're average street bird).

And then we meet The Boss….

This guy is definitely in charge here at the farm.  He spends his day chasing around the other species of fowl at the farm, in particular - his nemesis …

This young rooster is about half the size of The Boss and has a cute little "cock-a-doodle-doo" that he belts out with all he's got.    On the heels of which, The Boss crows his deep, one-upper.

It's pretty comical.

The girls cruise around the farm -

It's late in the day and spitting rain off and on but we decide to hoof it to Montepulciano & check it out.

Oh, it is uphill.

and uphill some more (we climb all the way up to that highest level)

                                    (I wonder if we could've driven to the top and parked….)

                                                     We spend a lot of time in this shop.

They have great stuff

We sampled things we wouldn't have considered buying….

And then bought

                                Finally!  There's a beautiful piazza up here!   (Waaaay up here)

                                                                  And it's deserted

After we conquer the top of the town, we find a restaurant & eat (we did do all that uphill walking, after all) and it's excellent!

                                    Avery got Ribollita (traditional thick stew with lots of veg)

                                                         Reese got Pecorino Picci

                                           (Quinn got Picci Ragu but I didn't get a pic)

                                    Dad got a turkey dish with a big porcini mushroom on top

                                                      Mom got sausage with white beans

                                           We all shared a spinach & carrot souffle'-type dish

                                                And the famous wine in this town is great!

We are excited to be based in Montepulciano this week!  We have lots of plans for touring this area.