Perks

There are many perks in serving in the Foreign Service besides the obvious of living abroad and gettng the extensive training available. One is R&R. Some posts, like Tashkent, are considered remote and those serving there are given paid trips once a year (if they serve the full two years at post). The R&R destination for Tashkent is Rome, Italy.
On August 11, Doug and I left Tashkent for Doug's first vacation in over two years.
We flew into Rome and immediately drove up into the Tuscany region anxious to get out of the big city. We spent nine nights in Montepulcciano - an old hilltop town overlooking vineyards and olive groves. We quickly fell into a nice routine of exploring Montepulcciano in the morning, lunching, enjoying gelato after lunch, taking one last walk then escaping the heat by reading and napping in our room. I usually took an afternoon walk, sometimes Doug would join me. For dinner we ate at the same small cafe every night which was right next to our hotel. Every other day we'd leave Montepulciano for a short drive to a neighboring city (also hilltop) to look around and hunt out the best pasta, pizza or panini and, of course, gelato.
Montepulciano was charming as were all the cities we visited. It was divided into neighborhoods marked with flags, each flag representing a family. There were many fun shops including leather shops mostly filled with bags, a shop full of hand knit wear, a paper and pen shop, one full handmade leather bound books and a wall full of ornate wrapping paper sold by the sheet, one of those knick-knack shops full of things you don't need and maybe even don't want, but you just have to stop and look, artist shops with paintings, mosaics (we go to watch him work) and a shop full of very old drawings of Italian scenes from the land and life and maps. We played an ongoing game "If we had all the money in the world we'd buy . . ." Boy do you wish we had all the money in the world; we really "shopped" for you!
We mostly saw outdoor sights like the old city gates (of which Douglas took many pictures), old fountains still in use, wells, doors ornamented with decorative knockers and/or knobs (of which I took many pictures), churches and narrow alleys winding between people's homes at which on every doorstep and window ledge sat pots of trailing flowers. Upon following these alleys we'd often come upon another view. Every view was breathtaking. I wanted to take a panorama of every hilltop view over that beautiful land. Panoramas take up lots of memory, I almost got cut off by Douglas. Speaking of pictures, we are looking to post all of our pictures on a sight so you can go there and view as many as you want. I'll let you know when we (Douglas) does this.
The walks we took were my favorite part. Each walk began downhill. We had our pick of a few roads leading to more major roads or lesser roads threading between vineyard, orchards and homes. We saw, of course, grapes growing everywhere, acres and acres of olive trees, apple trees, plum trees, pear trees, some berries and at least one fig tree. It was hard to resist dashing into the vineyards just to taste. We were good; we didn't. We did, however, have some plums and pears. These had fallen by the wayside along the road and we figured they were fair game. They were so sweet it was a shame to see them just laying there. The walk back was, naturally, back uphill, but it usually resulted in a meal which we were very ready for. After our nine nights in Montpulciano, we drove to Volterra and stayed in an agriturismo nearby. It, too, was on a hill so all our walks began downhill. One night at twilight we were walking down a road and saw what we thought was a very strange looking dog sitting in the middle of the road looking at us. We stopped and soon it's brothers and sisters came traipsing out of the bushes. They were wild boar piglets (wild boarlets???). Soon after came mom and dad and another adult or two. We froze. Thank God, the adults never noticed us, they just bolted across the road. The walks were very different in Volterra. The land was not full of vineyards. The surrounding hills were covered with cut hay so it was colorless compared to Montepulcciano. But the walking was good for me as these hills were smaller and so to walk it was constantly up, down, up, down and it was pretty steep.
The food. Ah, the food. The popular pasta in this region is hand made picci. It is like spaghetti, but much thicker - almost as thick as my pinky. It is so chewy, it is a pleasure to eat. They cook it in such a way that the flavor of the sauce soaks through to the center of the pasta. It was usually served in a ragu sauce. I also tried a cheese stuffed ravioli in a buttery cream sauce with sage. I never saw my favorite veal stuffed ravioli. I had a pasta with wild boar sauce which was very tasty. I wish I had tried more wild boar - sausage, for instance. It was very popular there. A few times we settled for less expensive, but no less satisfying, pizza. And we each had a panini which were okay. Doug fondly remembers some kebabs he ate with bacon, aged pecorino cheese and figs as well as a salad with apples, walnuts, cheese and greens. The pasta ruled. Every night I ate lighter so I didn't gain a bunch of weight so I usually had a bruschetta at the cafe next to the hotel. In Volterra, we had an apartment so we shopped at a grocer and made a lot of our own food so we wouldn't go broke. An average dinner at the cafe of bruschetta, a glass or wine, one of beer and a salad was around $40. Lunches were similar unless we had only pizza. The average plate of pasta was around $9.
The wine. Excuse me, I just wiped a tear from my eye. The wine was delicious. As we were told, even if we ordered the house wine, it was very good. Our favorite was the Nobile, a red wine that came in a few different forms from very drinkable to a rich, thick sipping wine. We went to no wine tastings though almost every meal was accompanied by a glass. Very common there was to not offer a glass of wine, but to offer a liter, half-liter or quarter-liter. I ordered the smallest the first time I saw this offered and drank three glasses of wine. I think their measuring system was quite in favor of the customer. Usually a quarter liter got me a glass and a half. We got to go through a cellar or vault called the subterranean city where wine was stored in huge barrels. It ran underground the span of a shop and restaurant.
I think we are still going through gelato withdrawls. Between the two of us, we ate strawberry, chocolate (guess who?), vanilla (NOT me, wouldn't waste my time), caramel, pistacchio, sour cherry and cream flavors. The thing that amazes me about gelato is the satisfaction I get out of such a teensy serving. It is so rich and creamy that I just want to eat it in tiny bites so it lasts a long time. If I were dishing out ice cream, I'd have at least twice as much.
I have much more details written up about our trip. I'll be posting them in the coming days.
While we were in Italy Doug got the news that his next assignment is going to be in Munich! That was, like Tashkent, his number one pick. We look forward to our last year in Tashkent and don't want to be too distracted with thoughts of living in the Christmas/beer capital of the world.

Here's one of the beautiful views from Montepulciano:

Here is Marcampo where we stayed near Volterra: