October 6th

On October 6 we checked out of the Mercure and headed to Termini (train station) to pick up the rental car. We got on the road around 10:15 and cleared Rome by 10:45. We managed to get out of the city without too many wrong turns and were very thankful for the GPS. Our first bit of troube came when we exited the Autostrade (toll highway) and got to the toll booth. JD inserted our ticket into the wrong slot, and we couldn't get it back. Also, the machine in the credit card only lane wouldn't read JD's card (no chip, remember), so he had to get the cars behind him to back up so he could get over to the cash lane. He tried to explain to the gentleman at the ticket booth that the machine "ate" his ticket. There was a definite language barrier, and JD finally resorted to exclaiming "Biglietti irregulari", which in pigeon Italian means irregular ticket. The gentleman finally figured out that we had inserted our ticket into the "biglietti irregulari" slot instead of the regular slot. He unlocked the box, got out our ticket, and charged us the appropriate amount.

We stayed at Castello di Velona in southern Montalcino, and it was spectacular. It was built around the old fortress and you can still see the outline of the fortress, but it has been massively expanded. Montalcino is very hilly and has some taller mountains, and our place was on top of one of them. The views were amazing. After touring the castle, we went to a local winery and enjoyed a tour with wine tasting. After that , we went back to the castle and each got a massage and enjoyed relaxing by the pool filled with natural thermal spring water. We then enjoyed a delicious dinner before retiring to a fabulous room with a bathroom almost as big as our bedroom at home.

Click on the photo of the castle to see our photos from Montalcino.

Montalcino