Have you ever thought about doing a tour of Tuscany with a Vespa, a scooter, or a vintage car? No? Until recently, not even me! Saturday, April 2, thanks to Vintage Tours, I had to change my mind on how would be fun and instructive to take a ride like that!
The day was long, as we did round-trip from Rome without stopping to sleep in the surrounding area, but it was certainly interesting for what we have done, seen and known. I was struck by the desire of the guys from Vintage Tours to take people around Tuscany to know the places which more (and better) give to visitors a good idea of their territory: it should be an obvious concept, but it isn’t always so obvious. The appointment is at 10 am in front of the headquarters of Vintage Tours to take the powerful (and beautiful) means of transport that will carry us around for the entire day. The first scheduled stop is near Pienza, to take some photos to the Tuscan landscapes (which are always beautiful). Shortly after we stopped in Bagno Vignoni that, finally, I could see with the daylight. I always like this place for its tranquility and this is a place that always give me the impression of being a place where to go when you want to spend a few days in total relaxation. Here we made a quick stop for a few photos and a coffee before leaving to continue our tour. Shortly after we also stopped us to the “Quercia delle checche”, monumental Oak tree of 360 years old located in a place near Pienza, called “località Le Checche”. I discovered, with a quick search, that in Tuscany the term “checca” or “cecca” indicates the magpie (Tuscan friends, you can confirm that?). It was still leafless and I was a bit “disappointed” because I think that with the green foliage it would have been even more beautiful to see. For lunch we stopped at “Dopolavoro La Foce” where we taste sandwiches with typical Tuscan cold cuts. Immediately after lunch we went to visit the small village of Monticchio. It is a little village which makes it perfectly the idea of Tuscan beauty and I was really impressed by the village itself:
it has become one of those places that I will will recommend to those who ask me where to go and what to see while traveling in these areas.
After that we moved to the “Caseificio Cugusi” where we tasted the cheeses they produce along with some wines from two vineyards of the surroundings, while the owners were telling us the history of the products that we were trying (by the way, all the food we tried was amazing). All that we could sample is produced by the companies following the philosophy of “zero km” (I don’t know the exact translation in english): companies use products coming only from the surrounding area and this is definitely a point in favor of all these companies.
Our  last stop was in Montepulciano, where we parked our vehicles on the main square.
After we have done the photos with our Vespe and Lambrettas, we went to the Cantina De’ Ricci, one of the historic wineries of the city. Here the owners have told us the story of de’ Ricci family and the importance of wine in the past centuries:  It was such an important food that wineries moved their headquarters within the city (once all the wineries were located outside the inhabited).  The setting is very impressive: the winery is under the Ricci Palace, commissioned by Cardinal Giovanni Ricci to the senese architect Baldassarre Peruzzi during the Renaissance. Going down a long staircase you get to explore this winery which was dug out of tuff (bring a sweater because it’s a bit cool): the spaces are huge, it looks like a place to house the Giants (forgive my digression made with a lot of imagination) and there are huge barrels made of fine Slavonia oak casks, where hectoliters of Vino Nobile are put to rest. At the end of the tour we were able to try out some of their wines: I never drank so much wine as on this day, but when the wine is good it is always worth a taste! The winery is open daily and you can taste wines and typical Tuscan products (for details, of course, you can check the official website). Thanks again to Vintage Tours for this day, for bringing us to discover some special places of this area of Tuscany (which surely I will return to visit to find out more details and other typical sights and stories).