french canadians in tuscany

Last week in Montepulciano, we saw some beautiful country and stayed in a small Tuscan town, but definitely the best part was meeting our new friends, Jean-Francois and Amilie. We were lamenting about not having a car -- usually it's not a big deal, as we ride trains to cities and then stay in or near the historic center and walk -- but here it was QUITE difficult to arrive in the first place (more on that below) and it truly would have been a great home base from which to explore more of Tuscany. Anyway, F found us a little arranged tour of two vineyards one afternoon, so we jumped at the chance to leave town and hit the country.

It turned out to be just 7 of us including Simeon and the tour guide, two of whom were an artsy couple from Montreal. They're both in television and had a break between contracts so were backpacking around France and Italy. They asked the guide for a dinner recommendation and she suggested the place we had just gone the evening before. We just stumbled upon it, and truly it deserves a post of its own, but it was so good that we were already planning on going back again that night.

This was a family-run osteria where we had a delicious assortment of cheeses, some delicious homemade soup with bread and white beans, and shared a 1.1 kg "Tuscan steak", which was the smallest the man could CHOP WITH HIS CLEAVER FROM THE GIANT SLAB OF MEAT WE COULD SEE IN THE KITCHEN. I think it was what we call a porterhouse, but in spite of the fact that we saw it sliced, it was the best steak either of us had ever tasted. Add this to the fact that we had just eaten steak the night before and actually weren't even in the mood for it but didn't feel we should pass up the chance to try this one.

In any case, we did see Jean-Francois and Amilie that night at dinner and shared a table with them. Simeon pretty much worshipped "John FRAN swah and Miss Emily" and tried hard to be the center of the conversation. They were good sports, for an unmarried couple without kids, and I think really enjoyed his performance with an ice cream cone. "It's COLD!", he repeated, about a hundred times. As a matter of fact, we ran into them yet again the next morning on a bus to Siena! At this point, Amilie and her Canadian Dramamine were unfortunately my savior.

I didn't get a picture of our friends, but do have several of more views from the top of a tower we climbed. Oh, and if enjoying the time with new friends was the best of this part of our trip, getting there was certainly the worst. It was a distance of probably around 100 km from Assisi to Montepulciano, but took us around 4 hours when all was said and done? We hiked from our hotel down the hill to the bus stop, got there just as one bus was pulling away and waited a half hour for the next to arrive, rode the bus further down the hill to the train station, took one train to a small station in a town called Chiusi, waited awhile, and took another train to the Montepulciano station. This is the smallest town we've been to, and the one most out in the country... our Lonely Planet book didn't have a map of town, and with our 2 days to plan the entire trip we hadn't gotten the details on the next step: getting to the hotel. It turns out that the train station is another 10 km or so outside of town, and when we called the hotel they suggested a bus, as the taxi would be around 30 euros. So we found the bus stop and waited a long time before a bus finally showed up and we hopped on, not quite sure where it would take us! We rode until it stopped at the bus station and after asking around a little more we walked uphill another 2-3 blocks and found the hotel. What a trek!