Grand Hotel Chianciano Terme

December 7, 2009



Didn't know what to expect of Perugia, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised. It actually have a very medieval feel to it. It sits atop a mountain and I can see why it was originally located here as one gets a very beautiful view of the valley below….and any wandering mauraders! Italy is on a 4 day holiday since the Feast of the Immaculate Conception falls on Tuesday. The ...

... villes de la region, orvieto est construite sur une coline et Emilie la gentillement rebatise orvieto "la vile sur une bosse". C'est une petite ville encore fortifier, construite sur une tres ancienne ville creuse a meme la coline. il y a une grosse cathedrale (duomo) comme toutes les villes que nous avons vue, puis il y a plusieur point de vue sur la region.

en fin de journee, nous avons visiter quelques unes ...

We ended up in Orvieto sa we saw a friends photos of the catherdral and thought it was a must see. The cathedral was like a mini Florence Duomo, but 100% cleaner as the one in Florence is nearly black on the outside with pollution. The front facade on the cathedral is covered in beautiful gold leaf frescos that were glittering in the afternoon sunshine. Had a wander through the old town which was full of life as ...

From the Med we drove inland to the east and into Southern Tuscany. We drove through some plain countryside and were about 2 kms from our destination when we commented on where is the town as we could not see it. Around a hair pin bend and we went wow! There in front of us was the walled city of Pitigliano nested on the top of hill surrounded by deep gorges. We found the perfect park for the night which looked across at the old city, with the highlight being its 16th ...

All vitamin D'ed up we arrived at our destination for the evening - Bagni di Petriolo - hot springs. Soon we were lounging in the hot sulphur pools watching the sun set. A fresh water stream ran alongside the springs and a dip in the water was very refreshing, although a little breathtaking at the same time! The pools were popular with the locals young and old as well as travellers as there were about a dozen campers parked nearby. As lovely as ...

Down the road from Montalcino we popped into St Antimo Abbey where the local monks say their (7!!) daily prayers in Georgian chants. We caught part of the 12.45pm prayers and enjoyed some down time while listening the chanting. The afternoon was glorious and once again we were in tshirts, so we made the most of it and had a picnic in the sun beside the Abbey.

... just! We found a cute little coffee shop that had the best views over the valley from the toilet of all places!!! Oh yeah and the coffee was good too! Stocked up on some well needed groceries as Scooby's cupboards were bare, then it was time to sample the local Brunello di Montalcino. Brunello must stay in the barrel for 5 years ...

From Chianti went south to the Le Crete region. The drive provided us with more quintessential Tuscan scenery. We stayed overnight in Asciano as we could not make it to Montalcino before dark. We had vowed not to drive in the dark as the small windy roads and excessively erratic Italian drivers are not good for our nerves!

... potato with mozzarella and ham for Andrew) and a riso ball (crumbed rice ball with mozzarella and ham for me).   Shortly after we got back to our lodge, Rodolfo came round to farewell us and generously gave us another bottle of his fine wine to enjoy on our last night at Il Borgo. We had a good friendly conversation with him over a glass of wine - Rodolfo always tries hard to speak to us in English, and between his broken English and Andrew's broken Italian, we somehow manage to ...

... that looked like a paper shop but we didn't find anything. We also couldn't find a tourist office. Finally I stepped into an office which looked official and asked for the tourist office. The man instructed us that it was the first building on the left by the street, basically exactly where we had parked. I don't know how but we had missed it. So we entered the office and asked the man for some help. He didn't speak English but understood that we were looking for paper. So ...