: Mar 19, After a hearty home breakfast we left for Montipulciano, a hill town east of Pienza. Being cheap we looked for a free parking which never occurred and finally settled for a garage parking situation . We walked into the steep narrow streets and almost magically came to a bella la boutique which by destiny had shoes that Liane felt must come home with us. It really was a cute shop with a variety of gift items and made me think it was just the kind of shop Liane would create if she had a shop in Montepulciano. The shop’s name was “Fatamorgana “ Well the shoes are coming home with us, if we can get two pair at a time on her feet or mash them into a suitcase. Being over confident of our sense of direction (mostly my overconfidence), after have a delicious lunch of lasagna beyond imagination, we got lost in realation to where the car was parked. Did I mention this was a very steep town of twisted streets? Finally relying on the shoe destiny discovery, we found our way back to where we to get out of this hotel California town.

From there we drove down a very narrow switch back road in and out of hills with Tuscan views out of postcards and came to a tiny hill town, Monticchiello. There were only 4 other tourist in this town, about he size of Hardy. It had castle type walls, winding streets, and of course a church built in the twelve hundreds, simple on the outside, even crude, but sparingly spectacular on the inside with Byzantine triptychs, marble columns and some dead guy in a box under the altar at front. Then out the other side to another winding narrow road back to Pienza to spend more time in this hill town than we had before. Evening came, made a fresh salad and spinach and ricotta stuffed ravioli, built a fire and will turn in early for an adventure perhaps in Florence or Siena, or some other place