where it is - Pienza, Montepulciano

Pienza

Pienza Pienza is situated on a hill, which get an overview on the Val d' Orcia. Val d'Orcia is a dry meadow, full of wheat cultivations. When you see some calendar's photographs or some advertisement's landscapes showing cultivated fields with straw rolls here and there spread, be sure: it is Val d'Orcia. Pienza here is well- known for the pecorino cheese and they say King Charles Magnus himself has tasted it. Charles Magnus was going to Rome to visit the Pope and he stopped to sleep in Pienza, know in those times as Corsignano. An abbot, who lived nearby, had to feed him and he got really worried because he had nothing ready to give a king, so he brought just a bit of pecorino cheese, also called cacio, and a bit of bread. He was afraid for the bad hospitality he was going to show, but Charles Magnus ate it with pleasure. Indeed the king took with him a few of that cheese he liked a lot. He said it was good to eat it while travelling, but who knows he didn't offer it to the Pope.

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Montepulciano

Montepulciano If you go around Montepulciano' streets you will feel to be in a village of nobles, as noble is its prestigious wine. This village is full of ancient churches and fully decorated palaces, a main square called Piazza Grande (Big Square) just on the top of the hill. You will find there many shops where to taste wine and nice traditional food. When you have filled your eyes and your belly with all these good stuff you can make a move towards another nice place in the neighbourhood. Outside Montepulciano houses, surrounded by a nice green grass, there is a beautiful and quite big church: the Madonna of Saint Biagio church. My friend, the professor, said that it is a Greek cross church, it means that instead of having a longer harm and a shorter one, it's perimetral area has all the four harms of the same lenght, as Greek crosses are. He also told me that there is a twin church in a village Todi in another region of Italy, Umbria. This church is called Santa Maria della Consolazione (Saint Mary of Comfort). I have never seen it, but I feel that Madonna di San Biagio church, with its grey colour travertine stone surrounded by green cypress trees, is a queen more than a sister!

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