Really enjoying your report and your humor and good nature. Looking forward to the rest.

Looking forward to the next installment Tom. Your report makes work go by just a little bit faster

Jocelyn:
Wow, funny, smart, attractive AND a great traveler...

Maitaitom, are you clonable? And Tracy sounds like a hoot; can I tag along on the next trip? I can't drive a stick but I can combine alcohol with ambien to no ill effects.

More installments soon, please.

AH! When you first mentioned you would be fueling up the car before continuing on, I guessed what you did....(fortunately that's one mistake we didn't make).

All we ever saw of Perugia was the EuroCar office -- as that's where the lady showed us how to put our car into reverse. That office should get a special award for customer service.

Thank you, maitai! for a great read every day!

Another wonderful segment from a Beautiful American!

<b> DAY SEVEN – PECORINO IS MY LIFE </b>

Tracy and I awoke undaunted from yesterday’s traumatic adventure and looked forward to new travels, which we hoped would not include anything to do with a gas tank. Kim and Mary had also recovered nicely, and the four of us had a good breakfast at the Palazzo del Capitano.

We all really liked our rooms. We were in the Leone (I’m a Leo), while Kim and Mary were in the Gemelli, since Mary was a twin and Kim and Mary were parents of twins. The breakfast room was nice, and we met couples from Oakland and Germany. After breakfast, we went into the back garden of the hotel, a huge space with lounge chairs, tables and an abundance of beautiful flowers. What a great area!

I don’t know if it was that beauty of the garden or the knowledge that I was going to get behind the wheel again, but Kim and Mary said they were going to spend the morning reading and relaxing in the garden, and we told them we’d pick them up in the early afternoon for sightseeing.

Tracy and I got in the car and drove to our first stop, Bagno Vignoni (less than 10 minutes from St. Quirico), the place where people like St. Catherine of Siena and Lorenzo the Magnificent came to sooth their aching bodies in the thermal baths, which had been renowned for their healing powers. Lorenzo had a great quote: “Whoever wants to be happy, let him be so; about tomorrow there's no knowing.&quot; Obviously, he realized the perils of filling up a rental car with the wrong gas.

Having already showered, Tracy and I did not need a bath, not that we could have gone in the huge pool in the town’s piazza, anyway. The town was charming, and we spotted a restaurant, Osteria dei Leone, that looked very good, and thought it might be fun to come back for dinner here.

From Bagno, you can see a fortress high on the hill called Rocca d’Orcia. We drove up to the town, and took in the beautiful views and dreamed we owned one of the properties that overlooked the gorgeous Val d’Orcia.

With great views to behold at every vista and a beautiful woman by my side, there was only one thing on my mind. You got it…Pecorino. It was on to Pecorino Central, the lovely town of Pienza.

In 2001, Tracy, Mary, Kim and I (yes, they went with us on this trip knowing the dangers at hand from a previous journey) had visited Pienza and spent some time in a cheese store eating Pecorino, as the lovely proprietor plied us with wine. About a ½ hour and bottle of wine later, we left the store and had a Pecorino picnic in Montepulciano. From that day on, the four of us have been Pecorino devotees (tonight after I post this report, Tracy and I…OK, mostly Tracy… are making ravioli, stuffed with Pecorino, Pears and Mascarpone).

It was a gorgeous day, and as we walked around Pienza and smelled the Pecorino from the various shops selling the cheese from heaven, we decided we could either stay here for lunch or go to a little place I had read about in the town of Monticchiello. We both decided we should head to Monticchiello.

For a tiny town, Monticchiello has an interesting history including one event from World War II. On April 6, 1944, the Prefect of Siena, during the Fascist Republic, dispatched 450 available men to Monticchiello, to confront a small group of partisans camped around the town. The Fascists were forced to retreat, but revenge was on their mind. The next morning at dawn, a German division reached Monticchiello with orders to find and shoot all the inhabitants. Soldiers broke into the houses, rounded up the people and lined them all up against the wall outside the town gate for execution. Thanks to the intervention from the German wife of one of Monticchiello's landowners, and the help of a priest, Don Marino Torriti, the execution was averted. A monument now commemorates the event, which is on the wall intended for their executions.

Tracy and I, however, came in peace. Of course, not before terrorizing citizens with some more erratic driving. Reaching the gate and realizing I could go no further, I proceeded to back down the hill from whence I came (using the reverse ring to accurate perfection). We walked up the hill to the Osteria La Porta near the gate into town.

We got a table on the patio with incredible views and even more incredible food. Now here is a shock, I ordered Ravioli alla Pecorino. The tomatoes on the Pomodoro Bruschetta tasted like candy. The ravioli was incredible. We could have dined here for every meal, but a German film crew was setting up to shoot a movie for the next few days, and the restaurant would be closed. An interesting dichotomy don’t you think? Sixty years ago Germans came to Monticchiello to shoot its citizens, now they were coming to shoot a movie. Quite an improvement, I must say.

Afterward, it was back to St. Quirico d’Orcia to pick up Kim and Mary. They looked relaxed and ready to get back on the road. Kim reminded me it had been 24 hours since our ordeal, and sure enough it was a distant memory (at least until the bill comes).

We took them by the Bagno restaurant, took some photos and it was on to the town that you can see from all vantage points in the area, Radicofani. It, not surprisingly, has a rocca fortress, and we decided that all these medieval people had way too much time on their hands, which is why they kept invading and killing each other.

This was also the place where Ghino do Tacco kept the Abbot of Cluny hostage for a while. It’s an interesting story you should look up online. A hint: Ghino had a nice side to him after all, which is why I now call him the Soft Tacco.

We drove back to St. Quirico, via Pienza, so Kim and Mary could get a whiff of the Pienza Pecorino at it’s finest.

That night we dined at Osteria dei Leone in Bagno Vignoni, and although the meal was good, it didn’t quite live up to our expectations, except for an excellent risotto. The Nobile di Montalcino was good enough that we ordered a second.

Since he did not drink too much wine, unlike some other guy we know, Kim drove us back to the hotel. We got to bed pretty early because tomorrow we were going to five different hill towns and we needed rest.

<b> NEXT - THE FIVE BEST HILL TOWNS MOST PEOPLE HAVE NEVER HEARD OF OR VISITED </b>

Ah, sweet memories! Tasting three different Pecorinos in Pienza, each a bit more aged. Lunch on the piazza in Bagno Vinoni. We were there in summer so we paid a day fee and swam in the pool at the hotel. I remember sitting there looking at the fortress on the hill, like something out of a movie.

We visited Montecchiello, too, but we had dinner there, at the Taverna di Moranda inside town. It was fabulous food, and our first bottle of Nobile which we loved.

Looking forward to more. The ravioli sound amazing. I don't suppose you could get Tracy to email the recipe?

Maitaitom, have you read War in Val D'Orcia: An Italian War Diary, 1943-1944 by Iris Origo?

It sure makes touring the area interesting and you can visit her gardens which are so beautiful.

Thanks SeaUrchin for the heads up. I just went on Amazon and bought it. It sounds very interesting.

Marilyn, as soon as we get it perfected, we will e-mail you the ravioli recipe.

Glad to see Iris Origo's war diary mentioned here. It was fascinating and harrowing at times, as much for what is left to the imagination as for what is explicitly chronicled. And, she apparently made the decision to have her war diary published as it was, not with an edit from the present day (when published) point of view.

Could you post the ravioli recipe at the end of the thread perhaps? It sounds divine and I'm sure many of us would love to try it. Thanks for yet another awesome installment.

I don't want to hijack the thread, but here is the book on La Foce, Iris Origo's villa and gardens. The estate also rents the farm homes now to the public:
LA Foce: A Garden and Landscape in Tuscany (Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture) (Hardcover-Amazon)

Thanks, Tom! When are you going to make it up here for a GTG?

VERY Entertaining, thank you.

Your trip report is so much fun - can't wait to read the rest!!

Tom - what day did you have lunch at La Porta in Montichiello? I think we might have been there also enjoying a lunch to die for - the zucchini omelette was heavenly - while observing all the commotion of the film crew setting up. We stayed in an apartment in this lovely village and thought it to be a wonderful base for exploring Southern Tuscany.

&quot;Tom - what day did you have lunch at La Porta in Montichiello?&quot;

It was on Wednesday, September 21 at about 1 pm.

We couldn't go on Thursday, and they were going to start filming on Friday.

oft Tacco&quot; LOL

Wow - what a coincidence. That is the day we were there, and at that time. We sat in a little table for two right next to the steps from the patio to the restaurant. What a small world!

I'm loving your trip report, by the way - I'd post my own if I could even come close to conveying it all as wonderfully as you do.

Bravissimo! What a fun read!! Can't wait for the next installment. I hurried past the reponse posts just to read about your trip.