Montepulciano

Tuesday 23^rd August

3pm  Castel Rigone

33C in the shade

Hubby back so got further afield than Preggio and Passignano today! 

Just had lunch after a morning in Montepulciano – a favourite place for tourists although there weren’t many there today.  Lovely old hill-top gated town just in Tuscany with beautiful views.   To get there one drives through famous wine growing areas including Ruffino and Tre Rose.

The main street is full of produce shops and here are lots of leather goods such as shoes and bags and quite a few expensive dress shops.

Thought this was a good way to attract attention to a shoe shop!

In addition to the shops it is the place for wine - the famous Vino Nobile and I still like exploring the underground cantinas with their barrels of maturing vino.  Of course at first it is fun to try samples of wines but one gets a bit bored of the ‘hard-sell’ after a few visits!  For the hungry there are also tastes of hoe produced olive oil and cheeses.  

This is the one we usually explore because it has an extensive and interesting grotto.

This month there is an art and craft event in the area and there were lots of exhibitions. 

This man was painstakingly re-creating famous masterpieces in mosaic (huge versions!) of , amongst others, Van Gogh. You can see his 'Sunfloers' in the background.  he also had beautiful orignal landscapes and street scenes.  All the little blue boxes contain different colours of tiles.

Our favourites were a huge hall full of giant carvings made from dead olive trees which are beautiful in themselves.  But these had been stripped and polished and then carved into the most exquisite forms of people and animals.  Unfortunately it was not possible to photograph but took this one before realising!

Duomo

We walked up through the town to the top of the hill to the church of Santa Maria Ascunta.  Sun in wrong direction to take photo! Interesting because although the inside is beautiful the outside remains unfinished – they must have started at the back finishing in lovely stone but leaving the front in rough brick and stone.