TUSCANY, OCTOBER, 2005

We love Italy and Tuscany in particular. We've been to Tuscany several times in the past several years, but generally only for a short visit on the way to other parts of Italy. It's been several years since we visited for more than a week. If you want, click here to check out our first trip to Tuscany. This time we stayed for a week in Tuscany, with 2 days at the start in Umbria and 2 days at the end in Rome. In Umbria, we started in Trevi, and stayed overnight in Spello. The second day we visited Montefalco. The main course was 7 days at an apartment at a "country resort" called Sant' Antonio just outside of Montepulciano. The last 2 nights we stayed at a B&B in Rome. Here are the details.

Like Tuscany, Umbria is known for its beautiful hill towns. It is very similar to Tuscany but with several essential differences. There are less tourists (except perhaps for Assisi), and the landscape is best described as "rolling hills" and is far less striking than the landscape in Tuscany. Here's a rundown on where we visited.

Trevi is a beautiful hill town in the heart of Umbria. It's very striking as it prominently sits on Mt. Serano and overlooks the Umbrian plain. It has quite a few interesting churches to visit. We ate our first lunch on this trip at a restaurant called "Osteria la Vecchia Posta", located in Mazzini Square, the main piazza of the town. Check the restaurant section below for a full description.
While we were in Umbria, the restaurants were celebrating an obscure festival known as the "black celery" festival. This celery grows in special areas and its color is darker than ordinary celery. To us it appeared to to be pretty ordinary. During this week, many restaurants feature dishes with the black celery. At Vecchia Posta, Alisa had gnocchi sprinkled with black celery, but the celery didn't seem to add much.

Spello is not a major tourist attraction, probably due to its nearness to Assisi, but it is still considered one of the most beautiful hill towns in Umbria. It is certainly beautiful, and is a delightful town to stroll about. It also has great views from its walls. Click on the thumbnail to the left to see a picture from the walls looking north. In the middle of the picture is the hotel where we stayed overnight and in the far background in the upper right is Assisi. Spello has quite a few very nice hotels within the city walls, but for one night their prices are a bit steep (130-170 Euros). Instead, we stayed in a modest hotel about 2 minutes from the city walls called Altavilla. This hotel has a great location, and is probably packed during the high season. While we were there, we were pretty much alone, but the room was well worth the 70 Euros which we paid. The place needs some maintenance, but served our purposes well. It is about a 10 minute walk from the city walls, (all uphill) and about 2 minutes by car. While in Spello, we ate at La Bastiglia, a wonderful one star Michelin restaurant which I describe below in the "restaurant section".

Montefalco is home to Umbria's most famous wine - Sagrantino de Montefalco. Montefalco is a nice town for walking around and in its main square are a multitude of enotecas specializing in Sagrantino. Go in, walk around, taste a few wines, and buy or don't buy. We ate lunch at the "Frederico II" which was more like a conglomerate than a restaurant. It's right on the main square, and includes a bar, cafe, full menu restaurant, hotel, pastry shop and wine store. If you eat lunch there, you get a 10% discount on any wine purchase. Lunch was fair, and we bought 2 bottles of sagrantino there. Click on the thumbnail to the right to see a picture of a typical enoteca in the center of Montefalco.

There's not much I can add to the volumes of information available about Assisi. We were there on a very rainy day, but there's enough to do and see inside the various churches to keep anyone dry for the whole day. We tramped through the rain to the center of town to eat lunch at a restaurant located in an alley called "Volta Pinta". You won't find a street sign with that name, I read it off the business card. The restaurant was hidden behind wooden panels due to renovation of the alley. The restaurant's name was "Pallotta" and it's also a hotel. The meal was good, but the service was veeeerrrry sloooow. The specialty of the house is the "strangozzi", home made pasta typical to Umbria. Strangozzi looks like short fat spaghetti and is very doughy.

Pienza has always been our favorite hill town in the area of Val d'Orcia, but this time we spent a lot of time in Montepulciano and came to really appreciate this lovely town. It's quite hilly, but it's filled with nice shops, churches, restaurants and beautiful views of the countryside. It was here that we had one of the best meals of the trip at a restaurant called "Le Logge del Vignola". A complete description below in the restaurant section.

The Montepulciano area was our base for the week in Tuscany, and we stayed at the "Sant' Antonio Country Resort". Sant' Antonio is a beautiful estate located about 5 minutes from Montepulciano, and includes 13 different apartments each accommodating between 2 and 5 persons. We were there with friends who came from the States to visit Tuscany. We stayed in the "Michaelangelo" apartment which has 2 full bedrooms and adjoining baths. Everything was just perfect - the view, the fireplace, the service and the kitchen accessories. Nico runs the place and he has thought of everything to make your stay perfect.

	Here's another nice feature. Nico is "closely connected" to the Avignonese winery, one of the leading wineries in the Multepulciano area and provides a full selection of their wine in the apartment. We drank the wine in the evening and the lady who cleaned up counted the empty bottles in the morning. Nico arranged a visit to the winery which we thoroughly enjoyed and which included a meal at the winery's "foresteria", (actually a meal with the family and whatever guests they had at the time. It wasn't cheap, but just the parade of great wines we had made it quite an experience. The most outstanding of their wines was the "Desiderio" an absolutely superb merlot. Click on the picture to the left above to see the family dining room after lunch. Click on the picture on the bottom to see the fabulous view of the countryside surrounding the winery. That's Alisa lounging on the ledge after lunch.
AVIGNONESE WINERY

When you visit Montepulciano, visit the St. Francesco church lookout, and the Piazza Grande, the main piazza of the town. Both have breathtaking views. Click on the picture to the right to see the Piazza Grande in a heavy fog. That was the weather when we were there, and actually it was quite romantic. Have coffee at the Cafe Poliziano, which is the most famous cafe in town and also has a great view out the back door. Almost directly across the street (just a little way uphill) is a store called Maledetti Toscani which advertises itself as the oldest store in Montepulciano. It has a fantastic selection of specialty papers, writing equipment, and beautiful leather goods.

MONTEPULCIANO
IN THE FOG

Chiusi doesn't get much attention in the travel books, so we were pleasantly surprised when we spent most of a day there. We picked up our friends at the Chiusi train station and since their daughter was with them and had to get back to Florence on a tight schedule, we decided to spend the morning there. Chiusi was one of the centers of Etruscan culture in their glory days , and now there are some very interesting sites to visit there related to this enigmatic people. We visited the municipal museum where we were taken on a tour (partly in Italian and partly in English) which was mostly underground in caverns dug by the Etruscans and which now house all kinds of Etruscan relics. Near the cathedral is another underground attraction for viewing the ancient cistern system, and outside of town near Chiusi Lake, are excavations and catacombs which can also be visited. It's a small town and very easy to get around in. We had an excellent meal here at "La Solita Zuppa", which I describe fully below.

Whenever we get to Tuscany, we always visit Pienza. It has lots of nice shops and restaurants and is still a delight to wander around in. It's small and easy to get around, and filled with both tourists and Italians strolling about. It's particularly appealing at the end of the day, around 5 or 6 PM when lots of families are out for their evening stroll. Pienza is the center of Pecorino production in Italy and here you can find a dizzying selection of this wonderful sheep cheese.

Montalcino is the home of "Brunello di Montalcino", one of the best wines in Italy. Due to its high price and long maturation period, I prefer several other wines, particularly Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. In any case, we spent a morning wandering around Montalcino, and of course visited the fabled fortress, and had a nice lunch at "Grappolo Blu", and on another day when we were near Montalcino at lunch, we ate at "Boccon di Vino", where we had the most disappointing meal of the entire trip. Both experiences are described below in the restaurant section.

SANT ANTIMO VIEW

A few kilometers south of Montalcino is the beautiful Sant' Antimo Abbey. We got there at the right time and were able to listen to the monks chant their Gregorian chants. It's a beautiful place. The picture at the top of the page is the abbey from its approach road, and to the left is a shot of the countryside from the church. Click on it for the full size.

Quirico is one of the really pleasant towns in Val d'Orcia. It's about the size of Pienza and has a wide selection of restaurants and lodgings. The highlight of our visit was the park in the center of town, which the city fathers have filled with a statuary of nudes and low key erotica. Check out the picture to the right. We were later told by a local that the town has a new "modern" town council and that the park is a focus of some controversy. It would have looked right at home somewhere in Greenwich Village in New York City.

SAN QUIRICO

Cortona is a nice town to wander around in. It has lots of beautiful shops, and the town is pretty level once you get up to the entrance. On the other hand, we found the prices inflated here, probably due to its notoriety as being the center of attention in Frances Mayes' book "Under the Tuscan Sun". We did find an absolutely incredible store which is called "Il Pozzo" (the Well in Italian). The address is Via Nazionale 10. It's actually a few steps down a stairway off the main road (Via Nazionale) leading to the central piazza and has a very amusing advertisement at the top of the stairs inviting you to come down and check out the store. Do check it out. It has a real well in the middle of the store. The store has a wide array of memorabilia, but it's main focus is an incredible selection of beautiful photographs and paintings of the Italian countryside. I don't often buy photos in a store, but here we made an exception and bought one.

Montichiello is a tiny little town about halfway between Montepulciano and Pienza (15 minutes from each but not on the main road) with the most beautiful view of the Val d'Orcia. It's even got a couple of restaurants (reputedly good) and a couple of places for lodging. The weather was lousy the first time we were there so we went back twice more to catch the view on a better day. Click on the thumbnail to the right to see the view.

MONTICHIELLO

We ended our trip with 2 days in Rome. We stayed at "Nicolas Inn" on Via Cavour and our friends stayed at "Duca d'Alba" a 4 star hotel located very nearby on Via Lionini. The Nicolas is a B&B run by Melissa and Francois. Melissa is a friendly, young woman from Chicago and apparently runs the place on a day to day basis. Nicolas has 4 rooms and is located one flight up from street level. The only drawback is that 3 of the rooms face Via Cavour, which can be a noisy street. Fortunately, the rooms have double glazed windows and air conditioners, so the windows can stay closed on busy evenings. The rooms are tastefully decorated, breakfast is served in the room, and Melissa is very flexible about accommodating breakfast requests.

Only because no room was available at the Nicolas did our friends stay at the Duca d'Alba. They were very pleased with this hotel, although it was considerably more expensive than the Nicolas.

This is the first time we stayed in this area, which is right near the forum, the coliseum and the Piazza Venezia. On Sunday they close the street between Piazza Venezia and the coliseum and the street turns into a giant street fair. We found this location excellent and enjoyed our stay at the Nicolas very much.

The newest thing we did during our stay in Rome was visiting the market in Trastevere which operates every Sunday. It is mostly clothing and every other imaginable commodity, and is absolutely gigantic. It must be at least 2 miles long and we didn't get to the end. We just stopped for lunch and then headed back to the city center.

The most entertaining thing we did in Rome was meeting a group of fellow Fodorite travel forum friends at a most interesting restaurant called Der Pallaro described below...

The best thing about the restaurants in Italy is that you don't have to eat in an expensive restaurant to have a great meal. Fresh pasta with a good bottle of wine in a nice family run restaurant is a culinary treat and a wonderful experience. We ate at so many nice restaurants on this trip, I decided to list them separately in the section below. I've listed them "chronologically" and not according to any rating, so the geographical order is from Umbria to Tuscany to Rome.

La Vecchia Posta, located in Mazzini Square, is small and charming, nicely decorated, with soft music and soft colors and a very helpful waiter. It felt upscale, but without an upscale price. We had a nice modest meal which we enjoyed very much. At this restaurant while on our way to the restroom, we asked a portly gentlemen what he was eating. On his plate were unidentifiable balls about the size of small tennis balls. Apparently he was the owner because he had the waiter send us some of his "balls", which turned out to be fried dough. They were tasty and surprisingly light and not oily. In Umbria and Tuscany, they don't throw away bread. They use every bit and morsel in many ways: crostini, fried, toasted, bread salad - you name it. Click on the thumbnail to the right to see how lovely this restaurant looked at midday when we were there.

LA VECCHIA POSTA

This restaurant is part of a hotel of the same name and well deserves its Michelin star. The service was excellent and the food was superb. We had a splendid meal including a bottle of wine for 106 Euros. There were the usual extras served in a Michelin restaurant (several little appetizers beautifully laid out on a long elegant flat white platter) and the 2 main courses we ordered were lamb roasted with herbs, vegetables and walnut sauce and angler fish rolled in aubergines, wild thyme, and goose liver. Click on the picture to the right to see how beautifull the dessert was. It was basically roasted pear with pecorino cheese and it was excellent .On the menu it was called "tatin di pera e pecorino". We had our first sagrantino wine here, and enjoyed a bottle of 2002 Caprai Rosso di Montefalco.

LA BASATIGLIA DESSERT

This restaurant specializes in traditional Tuscan fare, and is very professionally run. The host helped us order everything and it turned into an excellent meal. The highlights were the "ribollita" and the pasta with wild boar meat sauce. The meal cost 139 Euros for 5 people and included 2 different wines, a white with the first course and a red with the main courses. Ribollita is a Tuscan specialty - basically a thick vegetable stew/soup with lots of beans and grated cheese on top. It's cooked for a long time and best served the day after it is prepared. Click here for a good recipe. Check out the picture on the right which shows all five of us, John and Merillee, our friends from the States and their daughter Sarah who was with us for the day.

LA SOLITA SUPPA

Grappolo Blu has been a fixture in Montalcino for several years, and it didn't disappoint us. We had a nice meal here. It's reasonably priced and has wonderful authentic Tuscan cuisine. It also has a nice wine list and a very friendly family atmosphere. I don't remember everything we ate, but I do remember that the ribollita was excellent and so was a very interesting lentil salad.

This was by far the worst experience of the trip. We had heard many rave reviews about this restaurant and were really eager to eat there. The meal was expensive, and mediocre, but the worst part was the attitude of the management regarding a complaint we had. Alisa ordered seared red tuna. The tuna came out gray, dry, and had a bad taste. She took a bite, I took a bite, and then we called the waiter over and returned it. He brought the menu and she ordered another dish. She wasn't too thrilled with the second dish either, but it wasn't bad enough to return. In any case, when we got the bill, we found both dishes on the bill - the gray tuna as well as the substitute dish. I argued with the chef/manager, but she claimed 3 things - that we had eaten most of it, that she had tasted it and it was OK, and that some people had it at the other table and nobody over there complained. The gray dry tuna stayed on the bill. Since getting back, I have checked with other diners and apparently our experience was not unique, and the restaurant has been going downhill for some time. So, if you're in the Montalcino area, find a different restaurant.

This restaurant vies with La Bastiglia as the best restaurant of the trip. We had a wonderful meal with excellent service. It is located just off the main street in Montepulciano on Via della Erbe, no. 6, not far from the Piazza of St. Francisco. Everything was wonderful - the souffle, the fresh pasta and the lamb that 2 of us had. The web site has nice pictures of the restaurant and to the right is a picture of our very helpful waiter. The only negative was that my card was charged with "dynamic monetary exchange" and the price changed into dollars at a poor exchange rate. I complained, and the waiter cancelled the dollar charge and we were charged in Euros as we wanted.

LA LOGGIA DEL VIGNOLA

This restaurant is located right at the top of the Via Veneto near the traffic circle at the entrance to the Borghese park. It's got home made pasta, pizza, and a full menu. We were entertained by the waiter, Boniffaccio, who explained that he wasn't Italian because he came from Abruzza. He also told jokes and made sure we ordered the right things, and at Alisa's request broke into song. Click on the picture to the right to see our waiter, our waitress and Alisa enjoying our visit.

LA BRUSCHETTA

This restaurant was located right down the street from our B&B and was Melissa's recommendation. A real family operation and everything was great. We had shrimps and endive salad, tagliatelle with various sauces, saltimbocca, caponata (cooked salad with olives) and after dinner, Vinsanto with cantucchi. The restaurant was also a magnet for all the street vendors in the area which included flower sellers, musicians, singers, and several house cats. After we left Rome, our friends went back for another dinner.

Der Pallaro was the restaurant we selected for a meeting of Fodor's forum visitors to Rome. We got together with 6 other people, Laurie, Jim and Judy Hall, Duane and Carla, and Tom Sneed. In the picture to the right, you can see all of us except for Tom who is behind the camera. In the middle of the group is Momma holding her copy of Rick Steves guidebook which includes a write-up on the restaurant. It has no menu, just a price - 20 Euros per person for the house meal served by Momma and Poppa who keep the food and wine coming at a rapid pace. There were 7 or 8 opening dishes, after that, pasta, veal, and large unlimited bottles of home made wine. The meeting and the meal were great fun.
This restaurant is not easy to find but is well worth the search. The address is Largo del Pallaro, 15 and is just south of Via Vittorio Emanuele. The nearest identifiable landmark on a decent map of Rome will be Piazza S. Andrea della Valle, which intersects with Vittorio Emanuele . If you find this Piazza, you will be directly across the street from Largo del Pallaro. The restaurant is run by the Fazi family.

GET TOGETHER AT
DER PALLARO

TUSCANY NET	A SCHEDULE OF THE MARKETS IN TUSCANY (TUSCANYNET IS A GOOD GENERAL SITE FOR INFORMATION ABOUT TOURING IN TUSCANY.)
SLOWTRAVEL	DEAN'S RESTAURANT LIST
AT HOME IN TUSCANY	I DIDN'T USE THIS SITE, BUT IT LOOKS INTERESTING FOR FINDING ACCOMMODATIONS IN TUSCANY
CASTELLO BANFI	THE HOME PAGE OF ONE OF ITALY'S LARGEST WINERIES
OVER THE TUSCAN STOVE	AN AMUSING AND USEFUL SITE ABOUT FLORENCE AND TUSCANY WITH THE EMPHASIS ON FOOD. THIS IS ONE SITE YOU MUST CHECK OUT.
SAGRA DEL TORDO	ALL ABOUT A FESTIVAL IN MONTALCINO IN OCTOBER
VERRAZANO WINERY	A NICE WINERY TO VISIT IF YOU ARE IN CHIANTI