At home in Tuscany

Moving to Italy is not something I would ever plan on doing, but I like to imagine myself settling into the places I have traveled. Doubtless I would pick Tuscany and I would think Montepulciano would be a suitable home town for a fashion conscious wife and agrarian oriented husband. It felt like a place I had lived in before; or maybe it is just the sort of place after which I have longed. Driving up the road toward Montepulciano we caught glimpses of the town nestled into its ancient Etruscan hill and I felt my heart running out ahead of our Fiat eager to plunge into this wonderful bit of compagna Italiana.

On our second day in Montepulciano we slept in and then breakfasted in the dinning room at a table next to a young, laughy American couple. Cappuccinos and tasty salted eggs made to order, toast and Nutella, home made breads and pastries, Fresh squeezed orange juice from blood oranges. Yum! And then we ambled through the quiet streets with no pressure to be anywhere; the very essence of vacation. Kristin and I wanted some time to pray so we would occasionally duck into a cathedral, pull out our Bible and draw close to God. My favorite cathedral in town was Chiesa di Sant'Agostino. In college I read St. Augustine's The Confessions. Sitting in this cathedral named in honor of Augustine I reflected on his conversion and listened to the child's voice echoing down through the ages singing, "Pick it up and read, pick it up and read." I opened the Scriptures to Psalm 150: "Praise the LORD. Praise God in His sanctuary; praise Him in his mighty heavens. Praise Him for His acts of power; praise Him for His surpassing greatness." Hanging above the alter was a wooden crucifix by Donatello. Pouring over Donatello's detail of Christ's agony I was reminded once again that God's greatest achievements in my life do not always occur the way I expect.

We strolled on to a local organic Enoteca called Croce di Febo. Here we had our first oil tasting and it was fun. We tasted three different oils in small shot glasses with bread and red wine. The oil had a surprising grassy flavor to me. It is now my favorite. That afternoon we set out for a drive through Tuscany. We stopped briefly at Pienza for some of their delectable goat cheese. Unfortunately the town was crowded and we found no goat cheese. We were there long enough for Kristin to snap a couple pictures of the town. Pictured to the right is a Pienza building very typical of the architecture in Tuscany. From Pienza we went to Montalcino--home to the mighty red wine Brunello. The people in the enotecas were snooty and uninviting. We did pay for a tasting at the town castle and decided that Brunello was not our favorite wine.

Back in Montepulciano that evening we sat on the steps to Chiesa di Sant'Agostino eating rosemary bread sticks, sliced pepperoni and cheese. After our snack we walked up the hill and stopped in a pastry shop just as it was closing, but in time to purchase Cannoli. Cannoli is an Italian pastry-tube filled with vanilla flavored ricotta cheese. How good was it? Well, if I were to conduct a search for evidence of God's goodness the search would quite possibly stop at this particular Italian pastry. Seated on a bench at the top of town, I consumed the cannoli in a fit of gustatory ecstasy. All the while Kristin and I happily watched the Tuscan countryside go to sleep.