This week we are jumping into rural Tuscany with both feet.

Is it possible that the historical hilltop towns are all as beautiful as the pictures? Are all the fresco adorned cathedrals all magnificent? Is the landscape really filled with vineyards and olive groves as far as the eye can see?

We set off to find out.

La Montanina, Agri-Camping Estate

To help us acclimatise, we decide that tasting some of the local wine and olive oil was an important first step. We’re firmly in Chianti Classico country here.

We find a beautiful looking wine making estate in a rambling stone farmhouse that has diversified to include apartments and a lovely camping area. Newly renovated, the camping place is a bit tricky for us to squeeze into but it’s well worth the effort.

Nestled in the countryside, it’s such a change of pace from the last few weeks of city visits and tourists that as the three of us walk through the fields of vines, we can physically feel the peace.

In the evening, we talk to the vineyard manager and she explains wine making at La Montanina and shares some of their delicious wares with us. Although the vineyard is older, the current owners have been making wine here for 11 years. As you’d expect, there’s a lot of competition for wine makers and the vineyard here is yet to win a medal for their wines and with it the all important brand recognition.

In contrast to our experiences in France, the grapes here are all harvested by hand. Tractors and automation are too expensive.

Once again, we’re reminded that our romantic view of owning a vineyard is just that. Wine making is a tough business.

Autumn is in the air now, despite the 20c temperatures. It’s been a super dry October which has come on the back of record temperatures again over summer but finally rain is in the forecast for the next day.

We decide to make a quick hike up to the local castello to check out the views. From the top, we can see the storms and rain showers passing over the landscape. Realising one of them is going to get us, we narrowly make it home for lunch and the afternoon is a bit of wash out. No worries, it’s Saturday and we have the Rugby World Cup and Strictly Come Dancing to keep us entertained.

Montepulciano

Montepulciano will be the furthest south we reach on this trip.

The hilltop town is, at 600m, the highest in Tuscany and has an ancient history. The fortified walls and rambling main street are however renaissance era and courtesy of the stormy relationships between Florence and Siena.

Montepulciano is also famous for it’s wine which is a favourite in our house. The Vino Nobile, a DOCG wine, has been produced here for a thousand years.

There’s a sosta in town and although it’s really busy as we arrive, it clears out later in the afternoon. Beatrix gets a space looking out over the valley below with a couple of friends.

The town is gorgeous and instantly one of our favourites. There’s a steep walk up to the Porta Al Prato gate and then the main street takes you on a winding route up to the top of the town. The streets are a distilled version of the best of Tuscan towns, packed with archways, crumbling blockwork leading to dark, mysterious destinations. Every so often, one of the side streets surprises with a bright view out over the rooftops and across the valleys beyond.

We literally have to drag Merlin up the hill past 600 years of sniffs.

On Sunday, the streets are heaving with tourists and shopping is in full swing but by Monday morning we have the place to ourselves.

In keeping with our tour of Italian film locations, we find that scenes from the Twilight film New Moon were filmed in the Piazza Grande. A quick picture to prove we were here!

After some Christmas shopping and chatting to the street sellers who are quiet today, we reward ourselves a glass of Vino Nobile. I go for something fruity and lighter and Sally chooses something more robust. Both are epic. Cheers.

We leave Montepulciano heading west and also north for the first time in nearly two months. There’s lots left to see but we also realise that the journey home starts here.

Siena

Heavy rain greets us as we arrive in Siena. The sosta in Siena is below the town and doubles as one of the coach parks. The number of parked buses suggests it might be busy!

Next day we take the escalators (seriously) up into the town. We’re glad of them as it’s a pretty steep hill.

The heart of the city is the Il Campo square. We fell in love with the unique sloping, shell shaped piazza which has a border of dramatic buildings the highlight of which is the Palazzo Pubblico.

Il Campo is the venue of the Palio, a bare back horse race that happens twice a year. We’ve missed this years event but the pictures look amazing! In keeping with the film theme, the race and piazza appears in James Bond’s Quantum of Solace.

The Palazzo Pubblico is apparently still in use as the townhall but several rooms now house the Museo Civico. They provide some good views out and offer some insights into the wealth of the city in the 1400’s.

The grandest room on the visit is home to an enormous fresco by Simone Martini called Maesta, painted in 1315.

The Duomo

Siena’s duomo is another incredible visit. The design of the facade is as amazing as any of the cathedrals that we’ve seen but the decoration is simpler, less over the top, and more endearing than the duomo in Florence, or even Pisa.

The inside is staggering though. The black and white stonework continues and the fresco’s, ceilings and sculptures whilst amazing are somehow out done by the floor. Although there are covers protecting much of it, the glimpses that you get by walking round are something else. The whole effect must be breath-taking when it’s open.

Outside you can see an enormous extension that was started in 1300’s however work was halted due to the black death in 1348 and it was never restarted. The cathedral would have been bigger than St Peters in Rome had the work been completed.

Next morning, we head up to city early to beat the buses. We’re rewarded with sunshine and breakfast out, sitting in the Campo which we have virtually to ourselves.

We’ve loved our time in Siena.

Siena somehow seems more approachable to us than the epic cities of Venice and Florence. Perhaps there are less tourists at this time of year but it feels more welcoming here and we get all the elements of Tuscany that we’ve been looking for.

That said, after a few days it’s time for us to move on. We won’t miss the traffic noise of the sosta and we’re heading west and into the hills again.

Join us for the next one.

Sally, Toby and Merlin