Hill Towns trip: Montepulciano + Pienza, Italia

Today (October 20, this is being posted late) began the start of our 4-day hill towns trip. The itinerary is this: Monday during the day we visit Montepulciano and Pienza. Monday night we arrive in Siena, where we will spend most of Tuesday. Tuesday night we arrive in Urbino, and are there until Thursday morning when we leave for Assisi. We’ll be back in Rome Thursday night.

The drive to Montepulciano, which is situated in the Tuscan region, was absolutely beautiful. Cypress trees dotted the rolling hills lined with vineyards, little towns could be seen perched upon the tops of hills or nestled into the landscape. We could see so much of the valley that we could also discern the shadows of clouds moving along the ground. It was absolutely breathtaking.

Our bus dropped us off at the base of Montepulciano at a beautiful small church called Santo Biagio. It’s a centrally planned church that we’d learned about in our history church, and it was great to see it with the professor who taught us about it. (We’ve just crossed the point where our first professor for studio has left for the states, and D.Bell is now here with us until December.) The lighting was beautiful both inside and out the church, but as the coloring on the inside was quite plain, I decided to switch to black and white photos and they came out wonderfully. We had the place to ourselves, so we were able to take our time exploring and looking. I found a handwritten list of fratelli e sorelle (brothers and sisters) from the mid 1800’s, which was beautiful. Outside we had a quick sketching lesson with D.Bell, then trekked up the hill towards the town itself.

We made our way to the Piazza Grande, which was not very large at all compared to what we’re used to, but considering the size of the town, the name made sense. One major difference in typology was that the focus of the piazza was along an edge (a church), not the middle (a statue). We spent a while sketching again, then talked about the organization of the piazza with D.Bell before heading into the Cathedral. The interior was nothing spectacular, but there was some interesting lighting coming in from the stained glass windows, which was neat.

After managing to get lost a few times (extraordinary in a town so small), D.Bell led us to Chiesa del Gesù (Church of Jesus), which was a bit of a letdown. There was a forced perspective cupola painted in the middle of the dome, which was interesting but always just looks strange to me. The rest of the inside was pretty tacky, which wasn’t helped by the fact that many elements had been added recently and didn’t blend in at all. Needless to say, we didn’t spend too much time there.

While looking for lunch, we found some old interior spiral stairs that led down to the wine cellar of a local winery, Cantina Del Redi. The place smelled of earth, wood, and wine, and we wandered from room to room looking at all of the barrels. Some of them were around 12’ tall, and I’m not exaggerating! It was also interesting to see how warped some of the ends of the barrels had become over the years; it’s a wonder they weren’t leaking all over the place.

We all got lunch at a little café off of the Piazza and had excellent food. I got 2 bruschette, one with tomatoes and basil, the other with sheep’s milk, strawberry jam, and balsamic vinegar. Both were delicious! The region is noted for its wild boar, so a few people got wild boar stew and were raving about it. Liz got a panino with mozzarella, prosciutto, and truffles (also native to the area). Most of us also ended up getting little glasses of wine, because, once again, the area is known for it. Montepulciano specifically is known for its vino nobile, which was quite tasty. After lunch we piled on the bus and headed for Pienza, which was about 20 minutes away.

Once in Pienza, we walked along a cypress-lined gravel path with a beautiful view out into the region. The path took us into the main area of town, which had a few shops but was mainly defined by a piazza, which was bordered by the palazzo (palace), now a museum, and the cathedral. We began with a brief history lesson outside, then all went into the cathedral. It’s a hall-style church, which means that the side aisles are the same height as the nave (this also led to some unavoidable architectural imperfections on the façade). Since Pienza is on a hill and the Cathedral is right on the edge of a drop off, there have been some structural issues: many cracks have formed towards the apse, and a fair amount of water damage hasn’t helped either. Overall, however, the cathedral is in pretty good shape and showed beautiful vaulting and frescoes. We spent quite a while just sitting in the pews or on steps sketching the space; I did one of the vaulting that came out pretty decently, considering I usually prefer sketching angles and such.

We slowly started to meander outside once we’d finished to find D.Bell sitting at a café with an iced coffee in hand. Everyone got really excited because we haven’t seen iced coffee since leaving the states (or at least I haven’t), and went inside to order one…the café soon ran out.

It turned out that the museum was closed on Mondays, so we spent some extra time in the piazza sketching the façade of the cathedral. Some people were looking through my sketchbook, and it eventually got passed to D.Bell. He flipped through it for a while, then said “These are good Sarah, Jesus.” I was shocked! I mean, I’ve been liking my sketches this semester, but that kind of a compliment from D.Bell of all people was awesome! Huge huge confidence boost. On the way out of town, we poked into some meat and cheese shops…once again, wild boar all over the place. There were also huge wheels of cheese encased in wax, and some of them had wax filled with hay so they actually just looked like little bales! Amusing, and the store smelled fabulous.

We then got back on the bus, drove to Siena, and hung out in the hotel before dinner, but I’ll leave that for the next entry.

PICTURES: the interior of S. Biagio, a beautiful panoramic (this was our view all week!), pretty lighting on the floor of the Pienza Cathedral