{"id":2846,"date":"2015-07-27T09:27:22","date_gmt":"2015-07-27T08:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/merrington.net\/?p=2846"},"modified":"2015-07-27T09:27:22","modified_gmt":"2015-07-27T08:27:22","slug":"montepulciano-and-pienza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/merrington.net\/?p=2846","title":{"rendered":"Montepulciano and Pienza"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wine country, Etruscans, hilltop villages, green Italy and a perfectly transformed Renaissance village are all covered in today\u2019s blog.<\/p>\n

As you travel through the vines, sunflower farms and rolling hills lush with vegetation and crops, you see green Italy, not one of stone and concrete but another Italy altogether. Many of the vines are of the Montepulciano Vino Nobile grape and are some of Italy\u2019s best wines.\u00a0 They even had Montepulciano plums at our agriturismo. Montepulciano is a hilltop town and its roots go back to the ancient Etruscans.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The well in the Piazza Grande, Montepulciano<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On our second day in the area, we drove into the countryside to visit Pienza, a town created by Pope Pius ll. Beginning in 1458, Pius ll worked with the Florentine architect, Bernardo Rossellino to create a city model that was laid out in an orderly, pleasing and rational manner.It was a town where urban d\u00e9cor would benefit the citizens. He included new areas for the needy, so they could share in the bounty. He was a truly humanist Pope, standing up against slavery and the persecution of Jews.<\/p>\n

\"Pizena\"<\/a>
Pizena<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Tuscan<\/a>
Tuscan hillsides<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Most of us have passed bakeries, where the aromas are pushed out into the noses of passersby to entice them into the shop.\u00a0 In Pienza, the cheese shop had a fan sending out aromatic scents to pull you into their shop. Pienza is noted for its Pecorino cheese. Also known as cacio, it is made from sheep\u2019s milk.\u00a0 The sheep feed on the verdant hillsides eating aromatic herbs like it thyme, penny royal and absinthe.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The smell of cheese was everywhere<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There was also large amounts of art, including giant bracelets and rings.<\/p>\n

\"giant<\/a>
giant ring sculpture near reclining nude on swing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When in Italy, you read about the Etruscans and if you Google them, the story will begin \u201cTheir language didn\u2019t survive, so we know nothing about them, but they were an elegant people.\u201d Now with DNA samples, we may see that the Etruscans (Eighth century BC- First century AD) came from the western Anatolia, near Izmir in Turkey. The Etruscans are fascinating because \u2018elegant and mysterious\u2019 suggests a people of Bond men. But in the Etruscans\u2019 case, women had a significant role to play in daily life. The Etruscans were also great artists and seem to be the \u2018creators\u2019 of the famous hilltop towns in Tuscany and Umbria. Italy\u2019s history goes back beyond the Romans.<\/p>\n

The geneticists did not stop with testing ancient Etruscan DNA, but they also tested cow DNA in the region and found a match with Tuscan bovine DNA in the same area of Western Anatolia. Beef is a food of choice in Tuscany and Umbria.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
An angel cow<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As we left this area, we saw sunflower farms, some almost fully ripe and others that had just been planted. They are joyous to see and enjoy.<\/p>\n

\"Tuscan<\/a>
Tuscan sunflowers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Next trip we will stay in some of the hilltop towns, but staying in the country also has it’s benefits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wine country, Etruscans, hilltop villages, green Italy and a perfectly transformed Renaissance village are all covered in today\u2019s blog. As you travel through the vines, sunflower farms and rolling hills lush with vegetation and crops, you see green Italy, not one of stone and concrete but another Italy altogether. Many of the vines are of … Continue reading Montepulciano and Pienza<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,48,42,73,82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventures-2","category-antiquities","category-art-and-sculpture","category-italy","category-tuscany"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3VxXq-JU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/merrington.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/merrington.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/merrington.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merrington.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merrington.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2846"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/merrington.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2858,"href":"https:\/\/merrington.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2846\/revisions\/2858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/merrington.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merrington.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merrington.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}