I’m up about eight this morning and as now becomes my habit, I open the windows in the family room to view my neighbors and the weather for today. Today is not a pretty site; fog sits everywhere, so bad in fact that I cannot see three buildings down and barely across the street. I’m pretty sure Chris will not want to hike to Sant’Antimo in this nor can I imagine he’ll want to drive in it either.

When he wakes, while I’m in the shower, he calls to me to tell me it’s sunny now. I find this hard to believe but I trust him and when I leave the bathroom I don my shorts and sneakers for our hike. We lock up the apartment and trot down the stairs to the outer doors only to find when we open them, thick fog! I turn to Chris, “Did you actually look out a window when you declared the sun’s arrival?”

“Well, no. It looked bright through the cracks, so I assumed it was sunny.”

Back upstairs, into pants and then once again we leave for Bar Alle Loge. Along the way, we stop at the Tabeccheria next to Fiascheteria and I am finally able to purchase a current IHT. No apologies here, I think over a week without a current newspaper to be more than I, a regular newspaper reader since the age of 12, should have to bear. We’re off to the bar and our usual breakfast of cappuccino and pastry (today’s choices, not bombolini but something close with crème filling, yummy). By the time we finish our meal and I have devoured the paper from cover to cover, much to Chris’s chagrin, the sun has appeared for real.

We decide rather than putting our shorts back on and making the third clothing change of the day, to head to the hot springs at Petrolio and San Galgano today instead. We stop by our apartment to grab another package of dirty clothes, hike up to Claudio, and drive near the coop. I run into the lavenderia and drop our dirty bag with a promise that for another 16€, we’ll be able to retrieve our clean clothes in two days’ time. Perfect.

We head out of Montalcino on the road from the traffic circle that leads in the direction of San Colle Angelo and Grossetto (remembering from our 2002 trip that all roads do not lead to Rome, they lead to Grossetto). I’ve never been this way and must say, I find the scenery pretty, the rolling hills dotted with many brunello wineries and vineyards.

Within a couple of easy turns, we’re on the road referred to by Gloria, as the salt road. From her description, I feared this road might be reminiscent of the road we used to arrive in Montalcino on Saturday, but while it has some good hills, it’s not as twisty as the other approach. Another pretty relatively quick route (maybe 30 – 40 minutes) and we approach Petrolio. One thing Gloria definitely had on the money, if you roll down your windows, you will smell the hot springs before you see them, man that’s one science experiment that has gone bad or one egg left too long out on the counter.

We find the area around the springs way more crowded than expected. People have campers in the open spaces and day-trippers park along the road, pulled to the side as much as possible. We follow suit, pulling a bit of the ways up the road, near a construction site, where it looks like someone is building a fancy spa for future use. Chris grabs his suit and towel and we head down towards the spring.

Now here’s my dilemma, I’m not freaked by going in the water, but the truth is, I wore my short black boots today, and the sight of me, creeping over the rocks in nothing but a bathing suit and those black boots totally does not appeal to me. Nor does the idea of creeping over the rocks wearing nothing but the feet g-d gave me, so after holding up a towel for Chris to change behind, I send him on his merry way.

First, Chris sits with the others in the steamy area, while above, I try to ignore the waves of odor, like Elizabeth, NJ that float my way wondering if the stink will follow us throughout the days, permeating Chris’s skin and bathing suit. Eventually, he grows board of sitting there, climbs into the cool water of the stream to “rinse off” and climbs back towards me. While I wait for his ascent, I entertain myself by playing pee-ka-boo with a cute little boy that spent the morning at the springs with his mother. It definitely seems people in the area make a day of it at the springs, with music, blankets and picnic lunches, like we used to going to the Jersey shore.

After we do the towel trick again, Chris claiming all the while that it does not smell nearly as bad down near the water, we head back towards the car when a young German hitchhiker approaches. He’s looking for a ride to Siena and wondering if we can accommodate him. Unfortunately, we’re not heading in that direction but encourage him to check down by the crowded stream to see if someone else may be traveling in his direction. I feel bad for hitchhikers, ever since Ted Bundy, and I’m guessing assorted others, they’ve gotten an awful rap.

As we pull away from our spot, we hear a thud, thud. Chris pulls over but the tires and car seem fine, so we continue on our merry way.

I navigate us, using the dot-to-dot method and my TCI Road Atlas, and direct us towards San Galgano. The terrain in this part of Tuscany reminds me of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, though much hillier. It’s definitely not the open fields of the Val di Orcia or the Crete Senese, but more the thick pine forests of the south of Jersey or the northwest corner.

We arrive at San Galgano pretty easily and I find the setting totally desolate as in abandoned and beautiful. The abbey sits in the middle of a wide-open field with no other structures around. As a matter of fact, other than a few other tourists, we see no one from the “tourist industry” (i.e., snack mobiles).

We park along the road leading to the abbey and as we walk towards it, we hear an explosion; a minutes or so later we hear another explosion. My eyes aren’t so good, but Chris says there’s a cannon firing on a timer in the field next to the abbey, probably to scare the birds away from the seedlings growing there. Eventually, we get used to the BOOM that paces our visit.

San Galgano Photos

We explore the area outside and inside the abbey for quite some time. We take some cool pictures, hoping for one of those truly haunting shots, wonder at what it must have looked like hundreds of years ago, and as we are whom we are, get hungry and our thoughts move towards lunch. At first we begin to hike up towards the monastery on the hill overlooking the abbey, where Gloria mentioned a wine bar with some interesting snacks but then we decide against it opting for a full and relaxing meal instead. So, we never do get to see the infamous sword in the stone as we climb back down, hop in the car and head to Da Vestro in Monticiano for lunch.

We’d passed Da Vestro on the way to San Galgano, well, at least past a sign for it, so finding it now and parking was easy enough. Again, a bit nervous as a couple of tour busses lined the road nearby but the restaurant is large, can easily handle some big groups and as a matter of fact, the outside dining area, holds so many tables that with the groups in side, and a large group of bikers who we’d passed on the road earlier, a couple with their small child and us sitting outside many tables still remained vacant. I’ll note here too that the service does not suffer one bit from the large groups present.

We start with an order of pinci con ragu for Chris and pinci all’aglione for me. I find mine a bit spicy, which I enjoy; both are delicious. For our secondi, Chris orders the Braciole Maiale, which ends up being a thick steak, not the roll he always expects, as they serve at home. I get roasted baby pig (hopefully not from Il Frantoio in Puglia); we both find mine better and end up sharing these dishes. We also order a side of potatoes and enjoy some strawberries with lemon and sugar for dessert. With the house wine and a bottle of water, our bill comes to 49€ and we enjoy a long, leisurely very relaxing lunch.

For our return trip, we travel via the 223 (referred to as a superstrada but still only one lane in each direction). We find the advantage to the 223 over our earlier route to be the lack of curves.

We return to Montalcino about 4:00, about a one-hour drive from Monticiano. I nap, and read because I’m a true couch potato at heart while Chris partakes in another round of the Giro di Montalcino. After he showers, we watch Made on MTV, one of three English language programs we’ve found (the other are Punked and Pimp My Ride, also on MTV). While I enjoy the show, I still can’t decide though whether I agree with the message Made sends to teens. In one way, the message that with hard work and effort (and some serious coaching from professionals) you can succeed in anything you want I think is good but on the flip side, can someone tell these kids, they’re pretty cool just the way they are?

After our English fix for the day, we head over to Bar Alle Loge for a drink about 7:00. Chris enjoys a glass of Brunello while I again crave something foo-fooish and ask the waiter to surprise me. He returns with something, whose name escapes me (along the likes of Breno) but it’s reminiscent of a sea breeze, pink with a grapefruit taste and alcohol. He also brings us a plate of some picky foods to enjoy while we sit and talk.

About 8:15, we walk over to Grappolo Blu, not because we’re starving but we do want something. Honestly, Montalcino has emptied out so much from the weekend that we don’t expect Grappolo to be crowded yet, we find it packed. Luciano tells us to return in about half-hour that he should have something for us then, which is really fine with us.

We go for a stroll through Pianello, finding the church that Isabella Dusi writes about in Vanilla Beans and Brodo, as well as Bel Vino. We also find, surprising me at first, a gym – a real workout gym (ala Gold’s or Bally’s at home). I don’t know why it surprises me; I guess because it never think of people in other countries having the fitness bug that seems to exist here. They have signs up that you can pay by the hour but unfortunately, I forget to note the address.

We see a big glass structure a bit further on, and decide to investigate. It looks so foreign with the old stone homes of the city, like someone plopped an art deco 70’s structure down in the middle of this town. After circumnavigating it, and guessing at a dozen possibilities (including parking garage and swimming pool) we find it’s the new gymnasium built as an addition to the school.

We return to Grappolo about 8:45 and still wait another 30 minutes before Luciano can accommodate us but we don’t mind as we end up in a nice discussion with a couple from Toronto. I think I have confirmed a theory I have about frequent travelers to Italy. After dining with Brits, Australians, the couple from Luxemburg and now our neighbors to the north, I think the common thread that all lovers of Italy have is a love of good food and wine. Okay – maybe there’s the occasional history buff but I think the majority of us are foodies at heart.

Luciano sits us in the front room this evening and we start with the castelnovo rosso we love (they charge 18€ here for it compared to the 15€ at Boccon del Vino). We then reverse our orders from this afternoon with Chris starting with the pinci all aglione and me having the pinci con ragu. Grappolo’s (i.e., Maria Pia) prepares her aglione differently than Da Vestro, where Da Vestro has more of a sauce-like consistency, Grappolo’s contains no sauce but grape tomatoes and garlic sautéed in olive oil. I’m not sure which to be “correct” but we like both, though I think we prefer Da Vestro’s for the spice alone.

For our secondi, Chris gets guanciale di manzo and I get sausage and beans; both taste wonderful, flavorful and we both agree that we enjoy these secondi more than our secondi on Saturday night. We also share a salata mista, which we dress ourselves with a bit of salt, pepper and some oil and vinegar. We have two café and for after dinner drinks Chris once again gets sambucca while Luciano suggests I try a liquor from the Trento region which tastes like sambucca though a bit sweeter and not as thick. I like it better than sambucca but not as much as my usual Frangelico (of course one is licorice and the other hazelnut). We enjoy all this for the price of 67€. Before we leave, we ask Luciano for reservations for Thursday night, having learned our lesson today. He suggests we come either early or later, not during the “rush” so we can enjoy our meal. We agree on 9:15 and say goodnight.

Chris has a gelato craving, so we head over to Why Not, for his usual coconut before we head home and to bed.