Montepulciano

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This morning we visited Montepulciano, a small Tuscan hill-top town famous for its wine. The drive up to the town was very scenic, as can be seen in the photo below that I found online.

Our first stop was the city's main plaza, which is bordered by the Santa Maria delle Grazie church and the Palazzo Comunale (town hall).

For a couple of Euros you can climb to the top of the Palazzo Comunale's tower, so we headed up in order to get a bird's-eye view of the city. It was actually a pretty funny experience, as there wasn't really any tourist infrastructure in place and instead it was as if a local teenager had simply broken into the city hall, set up a folding chair and table, and started charging tourists for the visit.

The view was very nice, though the clouds in the background gave the impression of impending rain.

After heading down from the tower, we stopped in a wine shop to buy a couple of bottles of wine from the area. The shop also sold wine travel bags that prevent the items in your suitcase from being ruined if the bottle breaks en route. These would have come in handy a couple of years ago when we brought wine to the U.S. for x-mas gifts.

The shop's cellar had thirty or so massive wine barrels -- perhaps five feet high each.

After grabbing a quick lunch, we spent the rest of our visit simply wandering Montepulciano's narrow streets and enjoying the views. By this point it looked like we might actually continue to luck out with the weather and avoid the rain.