Day 12: San Quirico d'Orcia

Weather continues to be iffy…..the morning is very overcast but there are glimmers of blue sky and sun–but it may be we are just being teased.

Diana is feeling a bit better this morning and it is a pretty drive to Chiusi on the valley road to pick up Marian and Karlie.

The sun is out when we reach Chiusi and we find a space right down the street from the station. We meet them in the station–the train is late but Marian had called earlier to alert us–and head off to show Karlie–a vivacious 11 year old girl on her first trip to Italy–what an Italian small town looks like. We drive up the winding road to Monticchiello but Karlie is sleeping and oblivious to the scenery. However, once we stop at a bar and have a drink and Karlie has a cookie, she perks right up. We walk up to the church

and have a look around inside, then stop in a shop for some browsing. Monticchiello is famous for its Teatro Povero, a theater "company" made up of locals who put on plays that reflect their lives and issues. There is a museum for the theater in the tourist office and we ask if we can see it. We are told that it will take ten minutes for the multi-media exhibits to get started so we go out for a short walk.

The museum is quite an ambitious undertaking–very creative with a combination of music, sounds, photographs and a number of examples of stagecraft crammed into four rooms. You start in the dark and the exhibits flash on as you move through the rooms. The idea is to show the history of the area and the life of the locals and how this developed into the theater project. Unfortunately for us, it is all in Italian and we are unsure about what is happening and where we are supposed to go next. But we recognize the effort and ingenuity that went into creating it……even if much of it is lost on us. Next time we will bring our son Seth, who is an actor and speaks Italian….he will help us make more sense of it.

Here is the web site for the museum which shows some pictures of the goings-on in the show. Other pages on the site tell more about the company, its history and philosophy.

http://www.teatropovero.it/museo/museo.html

When we come out and thank the staff person, he informs us that we have to pay Euro 4.00 per person……which we do, even though we would have liked to have known about the charge before we started.

The weather is deteriorating and it is getting close to lunch time so we drive back to San Quirico d'Orcia and show them our apartment. Before we eat we take a stroll around town, showing Karlie the Rose Garden and the Horti Leoni etc.

For lunch we go to Il Tinaio–Marian had stayed in San Quirico d'Orcia three years before for a week and her apartment was over the restaurant. Lunch is very good…the waiter is very attentive and Karlie is very adventurous–tasting a bit of everything. For starters, we share the cauliflower flan, the sweet and sour onions and the artichokes. This is followed by pici with garlic and bread crumbs for Karlie and Marian, parpardelle with rabbit for me and gnocchetti with tomato and basil for Diana. Diana and I share another perfect panna cotta and Karlie really likes her tiramisu with pineapple and coconut. A little red wine accompanies the meal.

After lunch the serious shopping begins….I go back to the apartment to work while the three women hit the stores. I catch up with them later for a coffee at the Bar Centrale and we make our way back to the apartment as the rain starts again.

Then we take them back to Chiusi so that they can catch the train back to Rome. An enjoyable day for everyone.

For dinner, we finally get to the Trattoria Garibaldi, which is a truck stop restaurant connected to a hotel and gas station on the main road outside of town. It is very busy this rainy evening–a few foreigners sprinkled in with truck drivers, workers and local families. It is known to have good fish so I have the spaghetti with clams, which is one of the best versions of the dish I have ever had, followed by a fritto misto, which is also excellent but such a big portion that I hardly make a dent in it. Diana really likes her melon and prosciutto but not the pizza that follows. But we are generally very pleased with the place and wouldn't hesitate to come back.

Tomorrow is our last day in San Quirico d'Orcia and, as we drive home, we scan the sky for stars, which might signal a nice day–but we don't see any.