Last couple of days in the Val d'Orcia

We decide to spend our last couple of days in the Val d'Orcia doing no driving.  We want to spend more time in Montepulciano and on the farm swimming, wandering down our gravel road and lying in the sun.   So that's what we do.

Quinn & I head into Montepulciano to do some shopping and find the restaurant where we want to make a reservation for dinner this evening.  We accomplish all of that and stop for lunch at a cafe with a beautiful veranda overlooking the valley.  Quinn had a plate of delicious hand-rolled picci with tomato sauce and I had an Americano.   Lovely.

We met the rest of the family and, after sorting & folding our clean laundry (thank you Reese, Av & Dad), we all headed back into town together to wander.  The girls buy necklaces with colorful glass pendants.  We go to several wine makers & visit their cellars.  Wow!  We had no idea what lies beneath these wine storefronts!  The big local wine makers have been based in Montepulciano for ages.  For example, the Contucci family, has been living in Montepulciano and making wine since the 11C and the same family currently lives above the storefront (in a mansion, they are aristocrats).   Below the wine shop are cellars that descend several stories down into the hilltop - stone caverns carved out in the middle ages.  They are actual caves, full of huge barrels and casks.  All the wine cellars we visited are self-guided (which would never happen in the States).  You just wander in, following the signs with arrows pointing to the way down ... down….down…down…twisting around into dark caves, room after room, full of huge barrels.  It's amazing.

Enter Contucci Cellars

de Ricci Cellars - These were the most amazing

 entering another room

 going down deeper...

as far as we're willing to go

 no way

We did that for a while and then went to dinner at "Osteria Acquacheta,"  a loud, busy place popular with locals.  

It's a steak place.  Their specialty is bistecca all a fiorentina, served verrrrry rare.  

Our future dinner will be hacked off the huge chunk of meat on the left with a big meat cleaver (it's loud & everyone turns to watch)

The owner comes to your table, eyeballs your group & decides the size of the T-Bone he's going to hack off for you.  You pay by the kg, so he does the math on the paper table cover and looks for a nod of agreement on the price.  

After cutting your custom-sized steak he shows it to you - raw.  We all nod enthusiastically and he leaves to cook it.

It was the rarest steak we have ever eaten, but we took it on faith & devoured the entire thing.  We even brought the huge bone home for Cujo.  As sort of a peace offering and token of good will despite his issues with anger management.

Overeaters