Tuscany South Untour, Spring of 2001

by Gerald Clancy, Princeton Junction, NJ

For the record, we stayed at Le Chiuse 3 in Montalcino. I am still in the process of reviewing and renaming some 350 photos, so many have not yet been renamed to meaningful titles. However, I have put a hundred or so out on our Web site so that you can get a feel for where you will be staying. This is absolutely gorgeous country, some of the prettiest you will ever see. Enjoy it as much as we did.

Go to www.billtrak.net/italy. You will see an index with multiple directories. I divided the photos into categories to make it a little easier for you. These are large, very high res photos, typically about 1280 x 960 (the camera can do more than 3000 x 2000). They will fill your screen, even a very large one. You can size reduce them with a program such as Paint.

To see why my daughter Anne got up the first morning, sat by the "front" window (with a warming radiator) and said, "I'm in heaven. I want to stay here forever!", first look at 010414-067, 010414-068 and P2010086.jpg to see what she saw.

I know many of you folks are headed there shortly and because of business plans I may not get my notes finished, so here's some points on top of Cathy's:

Get the Herald Trib at the kiosk in Buonconvento (you'll be there a lot). Nice fellow runs the stand. As you approach the town on SS 2 make the left where SS 2 splits, as it takes you down the right road. Alternately, continue on SS 2 to the Shell station make a left and the kiosk is on the left at the next corner. Same street to go to the COOP. Kitty corner from the kiosk is the Tutta Frutta store. It's a must -- the friendliest grocers you ever met. No English but it won't be needed. You can buy one of everything, eg, 3 radishes, two stalks of celerly, an onion, three apples, etc.
If you haven't already, get the Rough Guide to Tuscany & Umbria - it's the best and most detailed of the guides. Never missed. Rick Steves' guide isn't bad either, though we all agree he's pretty geeky. But his advice is good and he finds good, inexpensive places to eat and lodge.
After Tuscany, Umbria seems a major disappointment. It's like going to an industrial park after leaving some of the most beautiful landscape in the world. You will know when you cross the provincial line. Assisi is worth it, we are told, but we were tired and turned around after ugly Perugia (without so much as a chocolat, no less -- it was Easter Monday, a holiday in Italy, and eerything was closed).
Avoid the Enoteca restaurant on the last hill as you get into Montalcino. It gets good writeups and even prior residents of Le Chiuse rated it high (singing owners, etc.). Bad news is that it went under new management three months ago. Pass on it. Go to the Taverna Grappola Blu instead. (An Enoteca is a wine shop and may have a restaurant associated with it.) Best pizza: Il Dado (Via Mazzini 18, Tel. 0577-847070, evenings only I believe). You get personal 12" pizzas for about $5 each. Super-thin crust.
Taverna di Barbi is a must for a special evening meal. Not inexpensive but well worth the atmosphere and great service, not to say excellent food. It's off the road south out of Montalcino on the way to Sant' Antimo.
Best place to park in Montalcino we found to be to the side of the Fortezza (inside the town) down by the soccer field. If you are really lucky, you can snag one of the freebees between the trees on the left side of the road.
The Enoteca inside the Fortezza is cool with a very large selection of area wines. However, since we visited it late in the trip, I found their prices, well, pricey. You can do better elsewhere. We preferred the Enoteca FonTe PeTri on the road back to Le Chiuse/Buonconvento (NOT the one on the hill just out of town). Tel. 0577-806241. English spoken and he'll bend you ear while you taste anything you want. If you are at Le Chiuse, buy their own.
The hill towns are beautiful but can be tough to get into. For reasons of parking, traffic and fatigue, we went through Pienza and Montepulciano six times without ever getting to the center of either. Both are worth a visit. We did to the church in Montepulciano.
Le Chiuse is pronounced "Lay Key-use-a" and, as best I could determine, means the end of a stream, as in a reservoir, for example. Also, an enclosure or dam.
Bring a small pocket dictionary. English is almost non-existent except in the cities. But you (and they) have hands, so you won't need it. You will find that the best thing about Italy is the Italians.
Stop by the Shell station in Buonconvento and tell the owner, "Lei e famosa" (Lay-ee ay fam-osa -- you are famous) for me. He knows everyone and I used to kid him. Tell him you're at Le Chiuse. By the way, prepare for sticker shock: Gas is $4 a gallon. They take VISA. But hours are funny -- see below. Get gas the day before you have to make that 6 a.m. run for the airport or train.
Plan your day or, more specifically, your morning. Everything closes at 1 p.m. and won't open again until 5 p.m. (some restaurants not till 7). They close again at 8 pm. A few shops, and particularly Enotecas, stay open throughout.
Bring yeast, buy flour there and bake your own bread. Tuscan bread is the worst. It is saltless and stales ten minutes out of the oven. It has absolutely no taste. (I was told that this is because Tuscan food is very salty and things taste good on it.) You will see only Tuscan bread in restaurants, just like only terra cotta buildings. I'd almost swear that you could be sent to jail for serving alternate breads. I do breads and soups at home, so I baked three large loaves while there. If you need instructions on doing this, email me. It's quite easy. Salt is sale ("saal-ley") and pepper is pepe ("pay-pay"). You will often have to ask for it as many restaurants don't put it on the table.
Drink all the '95 Brunello you can get at about $23 a bottle (it's $50 back here). The Rosso is a two-year wine, very good and much cheaper. Use this as an everyday wine. The '96 Brunello is not as good. We are talking, however, degrees of great.
Take your bathing suits and head south on SS 2 to Bagno Vignoni ("Baanyo Veen-yoni") and hit the spa at the hotel for the day. 18,000L (about $9) gets you a locker and shower and you can swim all day in 110+ geothermal degree water. The girls loved it while we froze our buns off watching them (it was the coldest day of our stay - I even encountered snow and frozen hail driving there). I stupidly left the suit at the ranch. Then absolutely have a late, large lunch/dinner at the Osteria del Leone there (Piazza del Moretto, Tel. 0577-887300 - Close Mondays). Fantastic. Reserve ahead if you can. See the pictures. The cute bathing caps are required not, as you might expect, to protect the water and other bathers, but rather your hair from the harsher water (sulphur, etc., but, no, there was no rotten egg smell). No ones hair fell out.
The Abbey at Oliveto Maggiore is a must see. There is a restaurant on premise with very few tables. Reserve ahead. Good bookstore/herbs/Benedictine specialties just to the side of the church. Do visit it. We really lucked out. Went there twice, once to check it out and the second time for Easter Sunday Mass, complete with the Bishop saying Mass and some 20-25 Benedictine brothers chanting the High Mass. Only happens twice a year, I believe.
Reserve tickets for the Uffizi days in advance of visiting Florence. It's a must. Ditto for the Galleria dell' Accademia where you can see Michelangelo's David. We waited for two hours to get into the latter. Siena (also a must) is about a 45-min. drive, Florence about another hour. Under no circumstances drive into Florence. You will regret it greatly. Park (probably free) in the Piazza del Michelangelo outside the Arno on the south side. Also offers the greatest overlook for photos of the city. We had our greatest meal at the restaurant across the street at La Loggia. Most tables have that great view of Florence that you see in all the photographs of the city. Both the waiters live in Florence but are natives (and high school buddies) of Naples and we chatted with them for an hour that evening. Good English. When they found out Anne was going to Naples the next week, one of them came back with an entire magazine devoted to Naples and gave it to Anne. (Downside later is that, after seeing it, Anne thought Naples was a horrible dump but absolutely loved Capri and the Amalfi view.) Bring money, though. With a couple of bottles of Nobile (see below), we dropped over $300 for four. It was our one blowout evening and worth it.
If you go to Rome, you must take the train at Chiusi. Tickets must also be purchased there. We were told to do it in advance for the girls, unless you like standing. Thus the six trips through Pienza, Montepulciano and Chianciano Terme. Great place to eat along the way is the Ristorante Pulcino, just to the east of Montepulciano. Bottle their own wine (seems everyone does).
A copy of the complete railroad schedule for all of Italy is in each Le Chiuse apartment. Have fun deciphering it. Better than the NY Times crossword puzzle. Get a Reserved number if you don't want to stand.
Another great wine, though not quite in the Brunello category, is the Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. As it's name implies, it was once reserved only for the nobles. Great stuff. Actually, there are no bad wines in Tuscany. Brunello's, by the way, may not be sold until their fifth year (min. 4 years in oak). And you're living in its hometown.
Visit Mario's in the Romana section (alley) of Buonconvento just behind the wall. Family-run restaurant and wonderful food. Most authentic Bolognese sauce. Inexpensive and great. We wanted to go back but never made it.
Unless you have a four-wheel drive vehicle, do not attempt the short-cut up the hill to Montalcino. Go the long way. You'll love the first two roads but you'll get over it.
Hoard 500 Lira coins for parking meters. In Montalcino you get an hour for L2,000 ($1), while most other places we noted that it was L1,000 or more typically L1,500. Meters don't take paper. Italian money is a good advertisement for the uniformity of US bank notes. It's varying sizes will drive you nuts always fumbling for small notes. 50 lira coins can not be used in meters. Parking cards can also be purchased. In Montalcino do this at the Tourist Bureau in Piazza Garibaldi where, BTW, no English or French was spoken. I tried both. Back to the hands...
Ristorante Pulcino, noted above, is actually called Fattoria Pucino. It's on SS 146, Tel. (0578) 757948 for the Osteria (Tavern/Restaurant) or 758711 for the Frattoria (Farm/vineyard). The have a novel menu. It is a four-page Xeroxed sheet with all the items in Italian/German/English and the prices. You fill in the quantity and foot the price and give it back to them. It's a good restaurant. Here are some sample plates and prices:

Primo
Ribolitto L. 12.000 ($6.00)
Tagliatelle al ragu (noodles w meat sauce) L. 12.000 ($6.00)
Ditto for all spaghetti, ravioli and risotto dishes

Secondi
Salame ed altri Salumi (Salami & other meats) L. 12.000 ($6.00)
Prosciutto Crudo (Italian ham) L. 14.000 ($7.00)
Pollo alla Griglia (Grilled chicken) L. 20.000 ($10.00)
Bistecca di suino alla Griglia L. 25.000 ($12.50)
Bistecca di vitello alla Griglia L. 25.000 ($12.50)
Fiorentina di vitello (per Kg.) L. 80.000 ($40.00)
Pecorino (Mild sheep's cheese) L. 10.000 ($5.00)
The 1995 (a very good year) Vino Nobile is $25. The house Red, also in a bottle (and without a twist off cap, thank you) is $11 and quite good.
A word about Bistecca. One might think, particularly if some French is known, that the Bistecca di suino is some sort of beef steak. Wrong. It's a pork chop. Bistecca is used with many meats and is supposed to mean a boneless cut. The Bistecca di vitello is what you want. Now a word about Vitello. This actually means veal, the main meat of Italy, but it is often used interchangeably with beef. The Fiorentina is actually the classic Tuscan beef dish, actually a 1 Kg. T-Bone (or rib steak) grilled over a wood hearth. It is usually only served as a 1 Kg. cut (that's 2.2 lbs., folks), so it is usually shared by four people. Yum. In Florence, I saw smaller cuts for two on menus.

As an aside, I've often wondered how many Americans cruised into a Paris restaurant, saw bifteck de cheval and went for it. Cheval means horse. What they want is bifteck de boeuf.
We saw recommendations to buy the Marling Menu-Master for Italy before we left and did purchase it. It's a notebook sized (4"x6") translator for meals broken into the classic six or seven courses. In theory this makes it easier to find things; in practice it is frustrating. We found ourselves using a pocket dictionary more frequently. It is useful to have around and read through before the trip (good tips) but less useful in real-time.
Americans pretty much sit down to everything at once: The salad, if any, with a plate with meat/fish/poultry and several veggies all there. Only desert is really separated. Italians don't. First the bread shows up, then the Antipasta, the Zuppe (figure it out), a pasta dish (which often alone would be enough for many of us), the Piatti del Giorno (the meat plate) followed by the Contorni or veggies. Then maybe cheese and desert with cappuccino. Typically, however, you will be asked what you want for your primo piatto (first plate) and secondi piatti (second plate). Side dishes (contorni) can be ordered with them. Pasta is usually first, then what you think of as your main dish. Make sure to tell them you want the veggies with it.
You will encounter Ribollita on many menus. It is a Tuscan specialty, sort of a bean-bread soup with lots of veggies like spinach or kale thrown in. If you like bean soup, recommend you try it, but, warning, it is very filling.
Unless they live near great Italian restaurants (as we do -- the Chambersburg section of Trenton) or are ethnic Italians, many Americans may not find prosciutto to their liking. It is smoked ham served shaved and is both fatty and salty. If you want good old ham you are used to, look for prosciutto cotto. Cotto means cooked/boiled. It's available at the COOP.
The "bible" Italian dictionary is the Cassell's (but too big to carry). They have a companion called Cassell's Colloguial Italian, which is a fun read, but if you are starting at zero with the language do you really need the dozen uses of "mezzo"? But it's very inexpensive.
Pasta is the Italian equivalent of the Irishman's potato, well known around this household. You will see it primarily in three forms: Tagliatelle, a flat, noodle-like pasta; penne, the macaroni familiar to most here (pencil points); and pinci, which you can think of as homemade spaghetti without the hole. Ravioli and Tortellini is often also found, often with wonderful spinach-cheese stuffing.
We stayed an extra day in Florence and took our last very good meal at a resturant to be named on a subsequent post Ed. note: This trip log was taken from IdyllChat. The food was superb and the service first-class professional, what I was used to seeing in the very good restaurants of Milan years ago. The waiter's English was excellent and he patiently explained how each dish was prepared. Worth a visit.
For lunch there, try the Ristorante Il Bargello on the famous Piazza della Signoria. Very good food and service. Tel. 055-214071.

Once upon a time in my distant past I had the opportunity to spend an absolutely incredible weekend at the Hotel Excelsior on Lake Como (where, ironically, daughter Anne is as I write this - we left her behind). I ordered orange juice with my breakfast. The waiter, who did not speak English, brought me a red drink. No, not tomato juice, I protested, orange juice. He finally convinced me to try it. Ah-hah. It was orange juice, the best I can remember. Turns out, it made with what are called blood oranges. They are wonderfully sweet and pulpy and it is packaged just like the normal juice at the COOP. Do get some. We drank a lot of it.

Facilities at Le Chiuse (#3 in particular):

Two spacious bedrooms and a somewhat smaller one with a double bunk.
Very large room which serves as a combined kitchen, dining and living room, complete with fireplace.
Large bath with overhead light (and a noisy exhaust fan) and one vanity light which was not working when we were there due to a short.
220V hair dryer which stays there. We bought it as a replacement for the one that burnt out, so you can leave yours home. There are at least one or two adapter plugs but bring a voltage converter for sensitive stuff like a laptop, CD player, etc. I used it for the CD player and to charge my camera batteries each evening. The Italian system uses two round plugs more or less spaced like ours.
The kitchen has all the pots and pans you will probably need, though an odd lot. Lots of "silverware". You will, however, need to make an immediate trip to the Coop for kitchen supplies like eggs (though a carton was there for us on arrival, as was some packaged ham), juice, salt, milk, etc. No toaster but we threw butter (burro) on some bread and fried it. Cut a little hole in the middle of the bread and crack an egg into it. Very good.
The small back building has a small washer but no dryer. $5 a load and each load takes about 2 hours. We did a good bit of hand washing for little stuff. It was very cool in the evenings when we were there (mid- to late-April) so the radiators were on at night and everything dried quickly.
There is a nice-sized pool which should be uncovered by now. We had no inclination to want to swim (except for Bagno Vignoni).

Hope this helps some. For those of you heading out to Tuscany, if you have any room left, pack me in one of your bags. Have fun. If I think of anything else I'll send another note.

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