Montepulciano, Italy - Wine Tasting and Site Seeing

One day last week (I think it was Thursday) we took a drive over to Montepulciano, Italy - another hillside town much like Cortona and just as quaint and homey.

Montepulciano and the surrounding area is known for it's wine. So on our way, we stopped at a winery and had a taste.




I had to include a picture of my lovely wife...awaiting a wine tasting.


The wine was decent. Not our favorite but not bad.

From there, we continued our drive up to Montepulciano.


As you can see, it is a pretty steep hillside town with quite the climb. From the photo below, it looks pretty flat but from the one above, you can get a sense for the steepness.



The residents do a wonderful job of keeping the quaintness and beauty of the town with their little gardens and flowerpots everywhere.



Once at the top, we arrived at the Piazza Grande (the main plaza or square) where the government clock tower and restaurants are. In the below image, we ate lunch at the restaurant just to the right of the clock tower building.



We also climbed the clock tower (not to the top of the tower but to the top of the building just beneath the clock). The stairs were very narrow and winding.

I had to turn sideways to get up them.



The view from the top was definitely beautiful.




After that we had lunch...and it was fabulous!


On the way back down, I took a different path over towards the town wall while the girls took the same way down. I wanted to get a couple more pictures of Montepulciano.




On the drive back to Cortona that afternoon, I was able to hang the camera out of the car window (Terrie is doing all of the driving) and get this picture of Cortona. The lower houses and buildings are part of Camucia, Italy (where the train station is for both Cortona and Camucia).



We're all in agreement...Cortona has been our favorite so far.

Ciao for now!

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