Montalcino, Tuscanny

Today we set off to see Montalcino (Tuscany) which is a lovely medieval town on the top of a hill with charming historical buildings and an impressive fortress.  This area is famous for its "Brunello" wine. This is about an hour south of where we are staying.
 

After climbing a billion stairs and walking up steep hills we reached the top of the hill and were rewarded with a  spectacular view.  It was threating rain, as you can see, the sky was looking dark and ominous.  Tuscany has had little rain this summer.  I am sure this a welcomed sight for the locals.  We tourists would rather have sunshine.  But we put on our raincoats and had a great day.

Of course, there were several churches in Montalcino complete with roman facades, bell towers, stained glass and fancy alters.  We tried to eat lunch at one of the local spots but they were all full and had waiting lines.  Not our favorite thing.  So we proceeded down the hill to head to Montepulciano and find a lunch spot.

Once again we wandered into a fabulous restaurant: "La Babarossa Travern". So quaint and Italian we couldn't believe our good fortune. So here comes the food porn as my friend Irene would call it....

Every restaurant serves a bag of bread to start the meal.  We find this so funny because the bags are all crumpled up and are full of crusty, delicious bread.  We also get a bottle of water and of course we got to try the famous Brunello wine. The wine was soooo good.  We have never had wine from this grape variety before and we have been missing out! We got a bottle to take with us.

Rick had a pasta dish with spicy sausage and onions which was very spicy.  I had Gnudi, ricotta and spinach dumplings, with racket cherry-Tomatoes and pecorino. The meal was so good, the place was so quaint and romantic and the view was spectacular.  We really didn't want to leave. 

By now it was raining cats and dogs.  We gave up our plans to go to Montepulciano and drove home in the pouring rain. 

Here's our selfie for the day.