Tuscan Country Life

There have been many surprises here in Tuscany. Country living is not something I am accustomed to even though I love to be outside. Below you will find some of the interesting things I have discovered about living in the country in Montalcino!

Beautiful things...

The sunsets here are nothing short of breath taking. Between 4:30-4:45pm you want to be high on a hilltop so you can see the magic unfold before you. As the sun sets, it blankets the rolling hills in a warm pink hue. It reminds me of the sunrise on the Front Range in Colorado Springs and I get the same awe-inspiring feeling from watching it. I try to make it a daily occurrence, when it is not foggy.

Also the land itself is beautiful, especially in the winter months. Ironically, it is lush and green in the winter (due to all the fog) and dry and earthy/sandy in the summer. They cut all the grass in the summer, leaving the earth bare.

Speaking of the land here, it is so beautiful to be able to see the rolling Tuscan hills with their patchwork of vineyards, and olive groves terraced along the hillsides with stone houses dotted in between. It looks like a quilt of epicurean love! :)

People take the time to talk to each other, spend time together and they are not rushing to fit life in. Instead they let life happen and then work around it.

Recycling is easy! There is even a battery recycling box at the checkout line at the grocery store. Everyone recycles...everything! Food packages are designed with easy recycling in mind. There is little waste and lots of composting that also happens.

Surprises...


The food in Tuscany in general is purely sublime. The only exception is the bread. I know this sounds crazy but they really don't do bread well here. In Tuscany the bread is not fabulous (due mostly to lack of using salt) but in Montalcino especially, it is downright bad. Crumbly and dry with little flavor, I prefer to stick with just some cheese instead. Go figure! Just to give you an idea of how bad it is, even the dog here will not eat it. She will only eat French bread.

In a cool and VERY moist environment there are "critters" of all kinds. Spiders are extremely common. I have found a few in my bedroom, one was dropping in on us in the car today (literally), one was perched on an olive branch that I was reaching for and another was on the bag of potatoes near the sink this evening. I really don't mind spiders (unlike my sister who would be throwing her shoes at them all the time) but I do like to know when they are around.

What I do "mind" are snakes. Terrified is a more accurate term. And there are many of those here too. Saw my first one yesterday... "just" a grey garden snake. Apparently these are the good kind because they eat mice. YES, my worst nightmare of rodents is here too! But back to the snakes. The "bad" ones are the vipers! You really don't want to be bitten by a viper because they have poisonous venom that will go directly to your heart and cause you to die very quickly. I need to be on the look out for short brown vipers. Seriously?

Mud, mud, mud everywhere. It is so humid and moist here due to the fog. The ground is over-saturated in the winter, making it muddy and dewy for most of the day. The earth never really dries out. So this means that my shoes are constantly packed with muddy soles and I never have a solid grip on the ground. I think I will invest in a pair of rubber boots that go up to my knees!

This is one of the Casa Raia vineyards, looking dry and warm. Don't let it fool you! It is all mud!!