Day three of our Tuscan adventure was devoted to Montepulciano. It was slightly more than an hour drive from San Gimignano. And it was yet another beautiful old Tuscan hill town. I wanted to see it because it was the town where scenes in the Twilight movie New Moon were actually filmed. We walked around town on a Saturday and there were vendors selling cheese and salami and wine and chocolate and all kinds of other stuff all along the streets. When we finally made our way to the town square there was some sort of market going on there too.
After we checked out the sights from the movie, we found ourselves in this amazing little restaurant, Osteria dell'Aquacheta for lunch along with just about every tourist in town. It was family style, meaning we all sit really close together at the same long table and my family bugs the shit out of your family during your meal! Family style, yay! Other than the stress of keeping the kids quiet and calm and not letting them steal food from the plates of total strangers (Emily), the food was amazing. They are known for their steaks. The owner comes over to get your order, there are 3 steak choices. Once you decide, he cuts your steak off the slab of meat, brings it back over for your approval, and then cooks it 7 minutes on each side over an open flame inside a stone oven. Steve got the steak and the kids and I got pasta because there was no way the kids and I would have finished a whole steak, they were huge and cost more than $40 each. But we all tried Steve's steak and it was amazing!
Below: Twihards will recognize the clock tower and door from New Moon. In the movie, there was a giant stone fountain in front of the clock tower, but they must have built it for the movie, because in real life there was no such fountain.
Emily and I waited around in the square while Steve and Brian checked out the Duomo (church) and I started to wonder where they were after about 10 minutes. They finally came out and Brian was talking a mile-a-minute, something about Jesus and crosses and windows and candles and how I just had to go inside with him. So we all went back into the church and he dragged me over into the corner and pointed and said "Look!" Then he stood totally transfixed by Jesus on the cross. Now, he knows the story of Jesus and although we haven't been taking him to church regularly (need to get on that), he went to a church preschool last year and Steve is really good about telling him stories from the bible and answering all his religious questions. But I guess he's never seen a depiction of Jesus on the cross, so this stirred up many, many questions and conversations that lasted for days. He was so taken by this little section of the church that I gave him a euro coin for the donation and he lit a candle for Jesus and then insisted on lighting all the other ones that had gone out already. Once we were finally able to pull him away from the church, we headed to lunch, where we shared a table with two American ladies, and two Italian ladies (one who spoke excellent English). Emily, who had previously seemed reverently quiet in the church (extremely unusual for her unless she is planning some shenanigans), breaks out of her silent shell, stands up in her chair, and proceeds to give our tablemates a dramatic reenactment of Jesus on the cross, complete with a full verbal description. We were of course afraid of her offending someone so we were trying to get her stop, when the Italian lady wanted to know what she was saying, so we told her. She translated to her friend and they both laughed and said that Jesus is in her head and this is good. Everyone thought it was adorable, and thus Italian-American religious relations remain unharmed!
Above: the pottery shopping in Tuscany was amazing. All Italian pottery is gorgeous, but the Tuscan designs were the best I've seen. Below: I just loved this little entrance to this house, it's so Italian with the chipping plaster walls, and brick patio, and wood door, and wrough iron, and vines, and plants.
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