I wish I had more time to post about Montalcino, but seeing that we are leaving tomorrow morning at 8 for florence I must get to bed. I will however try to write a more eloquent and descriptive post when I return. Falling behind is not a good thing.
But basically our trip to Montalcino inspired the title of this post. After we toured Siena in the morning, we were headed to Montalcino, a small wine town with 2,500 people and 297 wineries. It is home to the sacred Brunello di Montalcino, regarded as Italy’s most prestigious and most italian wines. From the information we had gathered, our itinerary was as follows: Take city bus number 3,9, or 10 for 3 stops to the train station. From there you will buy your tickets for a bus to Montalcino. Sounds easy and simple right? We’ll it couldn’t have been more of the opposite. We boarded bus number 10 and looked for the 3rd stop. It was definitely the wrong stop so we pressed on, hoping that it would come up in a few more stops. 30 minutes later we were in the suburbs of Siena where the lower class live and seeing apart of Siena that we didn’t know existed. I went and spoke to the driver and asked for stazione urbano? His response was a 30 second howl, where his side exploded and his laughter filled the bus. Then it turned into frustration saying we weren’t the only ones who had made this mistake. There were 3 old french women on our bus who made the mistake too. He explained to me in italian and broken english that we wanted bus 10 in the opposite direction and now we were stuck. He said that he would eventually get us there but it would be another 45 minutes. We then proceeded to get a tour of the outskirts of Siena, return to where we got on the damn thing, and then 3 stops later end up at our intended destination.
Next we bought our tickets for a bus to Montalcino. We were told that the sign above the bus would read Pienza. Pienza is a small town past Montalcino so I thought that made sense. An hour and a half later our bus arrived (apparently we had just missed the last one) and the first thing he did was block in a civilian car. The guy got out of his car to get him to move, to which his response was yelling saying (or so i think) that he was parked in the wrong spot and will have to wait 15 minutes until he leaves. After the guy got on his phone and told him he would call the cops he finally moved forward. We all said to each other, I hope this isn’t our bus, of course it was. I said Montalcino? He said no. I asked again he said no you fucking idiot. Then he yelled at me in italian saying the same thing 4 times before he got fed up and asked if anyone on the bus knew english. There was one man from the south bronx that did and he translated that this is the right bus to Buonconvento and that from there we switch buses which will take us to montalcino. So we boarded.
He drove like a mad men barreling through tiny roads and through anything in his way without regard to stoplights people or cars. There was one tight right turn through a small town that he couldnt make without backing up (something that was out of the question). He stopped the bus and waited until a parked car on our right moved and a parked car on our left moved (meaning we waited for the owner’s of these cars to come back to them, about 20 minutes). In those 20 minutes 30 cars showed up behind us and about 20 of them turned around and left. In front of us 15 cars tried to get by, threw in the towel and departed from where they came. A cop came up and yelled at him and his response was basically I don’t really care what you say to me. Finally we got through.
About an hour later we got to our stop in buonconvento, or we saw a sign that said buonconvento and the bronx man said get off but had no more information. Of course we weren’t dropped off at the next bus station and we were left on our own to find it. We went right towards a sign that said turrismo. It didn’t mean tourist office and we ended up in this deserted town’s center with light fading fast (5:55). Finally someone told us in italian how to get to the next bus station and we started running because we thought our bus was at 6. We saw the signature blue bus in front of us and we went into a full sprint, not wanting to be left in this quite deserted town. At one point we all thought we were going to have to sleep outside there that night. We got to the bus at about 6 only to get on and wait for 15 minutes until the actual departure time of 615 (the new bus driver must have thought we were crazy). We got to Montalcino a half hour later, checked into our hotel and then explored the town for wine tasting and dinner.
We went to a wine store that is all mechanical (see pics) where you stick in a card with credit on it and then get a tasting corresponding to the price. We tried 10 different ones for 30 euro and it was great to get a context of what brunello tasted like. We then went to Grappolo Blu for dinner. I had a pinci pasta with mozzarella, basil, garlic, and tomato sauce followed by rabbit braised in brunello wine served with creamy polenta. In Heat, Bill Buford talks about polenta as italians oldest food. This version was the best I have ever had. Creamy and full of cheese, it was smooth and had a consistency that coated a back of a spoon when you dragged it through it. The rabbit was good except you had to search for bones like they were fish bones because they were so small. Overall a great meal.
After we went to a wine bar where we were the youngest people by about 20 or 30 years. The cheapest bottle was 21 euro a Rosso di Montalcino Azienda Agricola Canalicchio Di Sopra 2008. It was a very good wine and we ended up ordering 3 more because we enjoyed it so much…A band started to play after about an hour and the female singer sang songs like Every Breathe You Take by The Police, Come Together by The Beatles, Man in the Mirror - Michael Jackson, and some other very funny renditions of american songs. We ended up talking with our waitresses, Virginia, a blonde from England whose parents had moved to Montalcino to retire. She was 20 and studies classics in Siena. Lucciana, 19 year old italian, studied languages in Siena but had grown up in Montalcino her entire life. They were very fun to talk to and was our first interaction with Italians our age. In Rome the groups tend to be larger and we cannot infiltrate the barrier when everyone around us is speaking english. It was overall a fun night where we learned about how boring Montalcino is and how they hate living there. I mean its like only one of the prettiest places I’ve ever been.
The next day we toured the town and took pictures everywhere. We climbed the fortezza where we could go up on the walls where they would put everyone in to protect them when the town was invaded. It offered a great view. We went to a museum and the duomo but mostly just wondered. We went to the tourists office and asked how we could get to montepulciano, another wine town, and she said no. Apparently there aren’t buses on sundays. So at about 3 we took the bus back to buonconvento where we waited half an hour for a train to arrive that took us to a station. Then we switched trains and we arrived in rome at about 7:45. It was a great adventure and the crazy traveling made for some great and funny stories along the way. I will fill in the gaps when I get back, but to all a good night. Florence for this weekend. La Giostra saturday night!!!!
P.S. Now accepting donations. Please make payable to Josh Kantor. Euro’s or Dollars will work fine.
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