Tuesday 9th - Montepulciano & Pienza

We visited this church on the way to Montepulciano, but I'm afraid I didn't take a note of the name.
This is the Piazza Grande right at the top of the hill in Montepulciano, it was quite a climb to the top and although there were some beautiful shops on the way up, sadly I didn't have time to do any shopping.

We stopped at the cafe on the left of the well for a cup of coffee.

This was the amazing view from the top of Montepulciano, I had to take this picture 'blind' by holding my camera over an opaque screen.
On the way back down the hill we saw this clock tower and the little man at the top conveniently struck the bell for us!

More gorgeous flowers.

It was quite a long way down and when you thought you had reached the bottom you turned a corner and there was another street to go down.

After we left Montepulciano we headed to another vineyard for a wine tasting. This was a much more modern place and the administrative centre for several vineyards. They provided us with a delicious spagetti dish with fresh tomato sauce, plates of bread, salami, cheese and cured wild boar and were very generous with their wine! You will note that there are no photos :)

We then moved on to Pienza, which is famous for it's Pecorino ewes milk cheese. It was the birthplace of Pope Pius II and a rare example of renaissance town building (or so it says in the guide)
I think I had got 'pretty little Tuscan town' overload by this time so not so many photos.
The coach stopped on the way back to let us take pictures from this view point.