Tues 10/18

A drizzly, cool start to the day with a weather report for little improvement made us a bit uninterested in driving too far from home. We are in the area in which the artist Piero della Francesca was born and spent much of his life. He was not given much acclaim during his life but in the 20th century his work became very well known among arty sorts. Since he's a local "son," there is much attention to his life and works in the area though there are very few of his paintings actually remaining here. Most are in the important museums of the world. There are a few here though, several in Arezzo, a couple in the town of Sansepolcro not far from where we are and one in the tiny town of Monterchi just a few miles from where we are staying. The work is a fresco called "La Madonna in Parto'" translated to the pregnant madonna and it is rare that she is shown pregnant so it is an important work despite that it isn't della Francesca's best or most elaborate. It's definitely Monterchi's claim to fame so we went to visit her. It is the ONLY work in the Monterchi museum other than two bits of fresco said to have surrounded the madonna but not done by della Francesca. There was a 35 minute movie about della Francesca that was interesting and very well done and showed many of his other paintings and frescoes. "La Madonna in Parto" was very nice but other than the time spent with the film, it was a fairly brief visit. We went to see her both before and after the film and left feeling that it was nice but other things he had done were much better. We felt ourselves to be better persons for having learned about this artist!

That's her

Next, we drove to Anghiari, the town closest to us. It's a medieval town famous for a battle in 1440 in which the Milanese were defeated by the Florentines and the borders of Tuscany were established. We were interested in wandering the town a bit but REALLY interested in lunch. We went to "Il Feudo di Vacario," a restaurant known for fine meat dishes so even though we were hungry for more pasta (and the offerings sounded sooo good) we ordered meat. Dick got famous Chianina beef and I had equally famous cinta senese pork with porcini's (cinta senese are the pigs that are black with a white belt and have been imported to the U.S. because their meat is so delicious.)

Pork with porcini's

Tagliata di manzo (beef)

Both were exceptionally good meat dishes! We had roasted potatoes and salad as accompaniments and, of course, some delicious red wine. I had something called vellutata di mascarpone for dessert (which I forgot to photograph because I was too busy devouring it) which I could only translate as mascarpone cream soup. It was creamy deliciousness served with a biscotto and a little drizzle of chocolate around the edges. The restaurant is quite small and full of character.

Next to our table

On back of toilet. Translation: what you have in your hand is not a hydrant and there isn't a fire on the floor.

An American woman came in as we were finishing our meal and we ended up in conversation with her. She is a chef  from Santa Fe and we had a nice chat before leaving to explore the town a bit more.

The town is old, walled, charming, on a hill with nice views…..pretty much the norm in these parts.

Very, very long, straight street through Anghiari.  It extends behind several hundred yards.

We met a friendly calico cat on our walk and did a general meandering.

After we got home, we found information telling us that their museum has a Leonardo da Vinci painting of the "Battle of Anghiari" so I think we will have to go back to see it and maybe hit that restaurant for one of those pasta dishes.