Pici & Politics in Pienza

We intended for Pienza to be our "home base" while exploring the smaller towns and wineries throughout Tuscany. What we didn't realize is that we would fall for this charming little town and our momentum would be slowed to a hault.

Pienza is simply beautiful with an old world sophistication. It is a world heritage site and was the birthplace of Pope Pius II. After Pius became Pope, he decided to give his town an Extreme Makeover, Reniassance Edition. As you navigate the small side streets- aptly named lovely things like Via Amore and Via Fortuna- you get glimpses of the Tuscan hillside just outside of town. All streets lead to two things- the Duomo (afterall, a Pope would direct everyone in town to church!) and Via Vista- a stone walkway that stretched around the outside perimiter of town and had the most amazing views of the lush, green Tuscan hills. Needless to say, we walked along this many times during our visit (and yes, I lit a candle inside of the Duomo). We were visiting during Festival dei Fiori (May flower festival) so the private gardens and potted plants outside of the little homes and shops were stunning. Everything was planted in either brown woven hanging baskets or terracotta pots, providing a neutral background for the great bursts of color from the flowers.

Now that I shared the history and lovey vibe of Pienza, it is time to get to the good stuff- the food & wine! We concluded that Pienza is the best cuisine that we have had on this trip to date. (Chad is declaring it the best food on the trip, period- as we are now in a region known for their pesto and pesce- which he doesn't really like. Since I love both pesto & pesce I'm not declaring Pienza the winner just yet.) Our first meal was dinner at Latte di Luna, recommended by Marco, one of the owners of our B&B (Piccolo Hotel La Valle, charming with great views and a fabulous breakfast spread!). This tiny restaurant only served dinner from 7:30-9:30pm, so we were lucky when we showed up right at 7:30 and got a seat. We accidently forgot to say "mezzo" and ended up with a full liter of the house red. Yikes. Molto vino! This drew some sideways glances and giggles from the older couple seated next to us (they were sharing 1/4 of a liter of the house wine, by comparison). I ordered the bruschetta con pomodoro, which was 1 piece of garlic bread, toasted, with a fresh tomato diced up and salted sitting on top of the bread. It was so simple (no basil, cheese or balsamic like the Americanized version of bruschetta)- and it was completely delicious! Following the bruschetta, I was introduced to the handmade pasta that this region is known for- "Pici"- and it was love at first bite. Chad enjoyed a plate of Pici, as well as a secondi of roast beef and potatoes. All this after informing me that he was starving because our occasional grazing on pizza, panini and gelato wasn't cutting it for him- it was time to throw down a serious meal. :-)

After we finished our meal the aformentioned couple sitting next to us (Swiss, speaking French) forced us, through a series of emphatic hand gestures, to order the dessert that they just finished- homemade panacotta with oranges. We were 3/4 of the way through our liter of wine, so we happily agreed. They began talking with us, starting with the basics- them: "we Swiss", us: "we Chicago." Mind you, they were talking to us in French/Italian and we were talking to them in English/Italian! Much like my interaction with Antonio in the shop in Siena, this hilarious attempt at communication is definitely going down as a highlight of our trip. The difference here is that the Swiss couple wanted to talk about politics and money, not cheese and "boogie, boogie."

Here is the very rough interpretation of what we discussed (oh how I wish that I had video of the conversation, because the hand gestures added so much entertainment value!)...

The Swiss: Obama, yes? no?
Us: Yes, yes. Very good.
The Swiss: eh, he ok.
Us: he is from Chicago too.
The Swiss: Chicago, Kenya, Chicago, Kenya? Eh?
Chad to me: we've got a birther up in here!
The Swiss*: We pay very high tax (lots and lots of french words inserted here about their taxes)
Chad to me: Swiss taxes are 80%
Swiss: We have no problem with work, no debt. Everyone has job. School free, you sick it's free, we have no debt.
Us: (lots of head nodding) that's great
The Swiss: Your democracy here (hand gesture down low) our democracy here (hand gesture significantly higher)
Us: that's great
The Swiss: you'll figure it out someday. good luck until then.

We then said our goodbyes to the Swiss, finished our liter of wine and stumbled back to Piccolo Hotel La Valle cracking up about what just happened. Talking about money and politics with complete strangers is tough enough- let alone trying to do so in 3 different languages. They were charming people (they invited us to call them if we ever visited Switzerland), and I am certain that we would have had a very enjoyable and enlightening conversation if we were all speaking the same language.

The next two days involved a lot more Pici and the discovery of the second treasure of this region- Brunello red wine from Montalcino, yum! We only ended up driving to one other town, Montepulciano, where we saw the medievil town center (they recently filmed a scene from New Moon here and there were pictures from the filming all over the place) and we tasted Vino Nobile from this town (not nearly as good as Brunello).

The Pici, the Brunello, a little bit of rain and beautiful Tuscan hillside views kept us very content and relaxed during the Pienza portion of our trip. We are so happy that we discovered this little town and allowed it to slow us down in our traveling tracks.

We are now in the Cinque Terre (with more rain, boo!) hoping to hike the trail at least once over the next 3 days before heading home (boo again!). I will blog about this portion of of journey next time.
Ciao for now.

Photos from Pienza:

*corrected on 5/5/10: I originally posted, in error, that we said this when actually The Swiss went into very a long prose about how high that their taxes were.