Still trying to catch up here, and so many photos to share of the stunningly picturesque countryside! My last post left off at the arrival in Montalcino, at the end of that first, looooong day’s ride. [I realize that this blog can be a little confusing, because each post is written chronologically, of course, but the nature of blogs makes the posts show up in reverse-chronological order. Sorry, but “welcome to my world”, as I like to say. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ]
Montalcino was the second of the many beautiful little hill towns we will be visiting over the next couple of weeks. I ended the last post with a photo looking up at the town from the bottom of the hill; here’s a photo from the top, looking down over the surrounding countryside:
Since we’d arrived so late the night before, and stayed at the hotel for dinner, we spent some time on Tuesday morning exploring:
View of town from the ‘fortrezza’
On the road to Montepulciano
Another gorgeous day in the Italian countryside for ride #2:
A rest day (Already? Yes, already)
Since we were staying two nights in Montepulciano, we decided to take a day off from the bikes. This is a longer tour than we’ve ever done before, plus day one really whipped us good, so we didn’t even have any guilt pangs about taking a day off already.
Montepulciano is another beautiful town, with lots to see, so we didn’t have any trouble filling up the day. We walked a ton, and were enamored of all the little alleys everywhere:
Mallory resting and taking in the view
We also took in an impressive little museum exhibit about Leonardo da Vinci’s explorations of water dynamics and the potential for water projects in the region. We had the exhibit to ourselves the entire time too. Outside the museum, which was housed in the the town’s fortrezza, there was a wonderful little park:
Later in the day, we stumbled onto a very old wine cellar…
Oh and here’s our room in Montepulciano, as well as the view from our room:
On Thursday, we rode from Montepulciano to Cortona, and this morning we had our easiest ride yet, from Cortona to Arezzo, where I sit writing this post. It’s well after midnight here now, so I’m going to turn in. I’m going to keep trying to get current in the next couple of days, but no promises!
