Best Hilltown in Italy!

Finally, I have found my perfect hilltown. We have been to several and before today found one really nice one, Montalcino, just south of Siena. It was quite nice...small and very few tourists. Plus, they have some of the best wine in Italy, Brunello de Montecino. No tour groups and very few loud Americans (many loud Italians, though). Had a pretty good lunch there and bought some Brunello to bring home. Fantastic wine. Most of the other hilltowns just had too many tourists. Siena was packed to the gills with them. Is every tourist in the world in Italy at this moment? I think maybe so. Went to Orivieto this morning and again, just packed with tour groups.

Civita de Bagneregio, which is the one Rick Steve's goes on and on about, was very nice. Certainly one of the most beautiful hill towns. Funny thing was, very few Americans, most tourists were from Rome and it wasnt very crowded. It was a beautiful place.



But this afternoon we made it to our destination and THIS is the place...Pitigliano.

Perched on a tufa hill in the very south of Tuscany, this is a beautiful hilltown that is very well preserved. And there is real life here....Nonas (grandmas) all over the place, talking story to each other on benches long the little roads. Little kids on their tricycles toodling around the back streets. Wonderful little alleyways you can explore that end at the cliff, always with a fantasic view. This town is hardly talked about in any of the American guides...that is why we haven't seen an American tourist here...again, only Italian tourists.



Amy and I had a wonderful time wandering around the streets, taking pictures of the alleyways, views from the ramparts, and of the locals going about their daily business. This is a REAL town, not just a tourist town. You get the feel that they could do without us if they could, as opposed to the other, more famous hilltowns. I just love it here.

For the last couple of days we were with Amy's family in Umbria, at a nice farmhouse Bob and Janet rented, along with their two daughters and Amy's other sister, Eberle. We had a great time there, just relaxing after the five crazy days in Florence and Siena. We hiked among vineyards and farm animals, saw fields of tobacco and tomatoes, and had a wonderful meal to celebrate Janets 60 birthday. It was really nice seeing family so far away.

Tomorrow we plan on hiking in some Etruscan ruins and going to a wine festival nearby. We have had some really good wine so far, the best being the Brunello de Montalcino. Tonight we just had some nice local wine, the white and the red from Pitigliano. Funny thing is, all afternoon there were big tractors bringing in cartloads of grapes. It is harvest time here for the wine.

We are staying at the only hotel in town, the Hotel Alberto Guastini, with a great view of the town and had a great meal...a plate of the local cheeses with honey, a nice ensalata mixta and Amy had a ragu of lamb and me, I had a nice wild boar cacciatori. Wow, that is some meal!! Washed down with the local wine, well it doesnt get better then that.