Montalcino, Tuscany

We had to be in Rome for a series of appointments (bank, visas etc) and somehow ended up with a week to kill between meetings. Rome is not a place where you want to spend a lazy week in the middle of a very hot summer, so we started looking for somewhere to skip out to for seven days.

There were a few criteria: easy transport to/from Rome, a place cooler than the capital (preferably with a beach or swimming pool), with enough to keep us occupied for a week or so and, somewhere we hadn’t previously visited. We decided on Montalcino.

Though it’s not exactly easy to get to (train then bus), Montalcino ticked all the other boxes. It’s a beautiful town, south of Sienna and close to the Val d’Orcia. It was an area we’d been to before and loved, but at that time we’d missed visiting Montalcino.

Which is probably just as well – on our previous swing through southern Tuscany we wouldn’t have spent long in Montalcino; this time we stayed to enjoy all that this charming little town has to offer.

Montalcino is a small medieval hill town about an hour south of Siena

With wonderful views over the vines and olive groves to the valleys below

And narrow, cobbled streets (that's the main street on the left)

Unusually for us, we booked into a hotel for our week in Montalcino

After being in very hot Rome, it was the pool we couldn't go past

Great views were a bonus (this from the bathroom window)

Montalcino is such a pretty town

Certainly it's well set up for tourists, but it was very quiet during our visit

All the big attractions can be found here... there's a fortress

Churches, of course

And little side streets packed with picture-postcard scenes

 

Lunch with a view - a table in the street

The 13th century Palazzo dei Priori - today Montalcino's Town Hall

Restaurant looking out onto the piazza

There's a sign here remembering a local soldier who, in the First World War, threw himself between a bullet and a young American; the soldier died, the American went on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature

When the greengrocer comes to town

the locals come out to buy

The town is best known for Brunello di Montalcino wine

It's an expensive red wine produced only in the vineyards surrounding the town

From 100% Sangiovese grapes

But not just any Sangiovese grapes - Brunello di Montalcino can be made only from a specific and rare clone of the vine

In all there are only 1200 hectares of these special vines

The Costanti family has been producing Brunello for more than a hundred years

Oak casks ageing the precious wine

Part of the family's private collection; they occasionally open a bottle from this cellar - recently it was a 1967 vintage that drank beautifully apparently

Ready for dinner and a little taste of the famous Brunello di Montalcino

And we can report that it was delicious

And then, all too soon, our relaxing and very enjoyable week in Tuscany was over; but we were delighted to have lingered in lovely Montalcino