The big birthday bash

After 2.5 months of living through the Festival of Ro the day of the party has finally arrived.

Two car loads of us headed over to Montepulciano this morning to have a look at another beautiful medieval town. This one was bigger than all the other towns around as equally as beautiful. It was only about 20 minutes from our villa.

Arrived after driving through such beautiful countryside. I just never get sick of it.

Parked the car and headed up to the old town

So beautiful and again the history.

Had our morning coffee with pastries and it was a morning of wandering through the town and doing some shopping

The shopping was wonderful. So much leather and ceramics and clothes and artwork. Totally spoiled for choice.

I had done a bit of shopping in other towns so not really looking for anything however on the way up the street in the first shop did spot a very beautiful handbag but thought, no will wait and see what else is up the street.

The old town of Montepulciano was just one long street of shops, churches, restaurants, bars and little cobblestone side alleys that went nowhere but so much atmosphere and again very lucky that there were hardly any tourists.

There was a fabulous clock tower with a man on top chiming the hour

Ro was the shopping queen and won all prizes for the amount of shopping she did.

Stu and I were getting a little bored so popped into a little cafe or bar as they are called here, and had a little espresso and looked out onto the magnificent view of the surrounding countryside.

Walked out onto the street and everyone had caught up and met us there and we found a gorgeous restaurant for a little lunch sitting on their balcony overlooking everything.

Our lovely waiter explained to us that he was born in Montepulciano and people from the town were known as Politiziano’s which happened to be the name of the restaurant. Of course we thought it meant Police!!

We strolled back to the car after that but not before having a picture taken beside the massive horse which was done by Leonardo da Vinci. It was so big it put out big merino and big prawn to shame

A quick shop at the supermarket and off we went back to the villa for a swim and to get ready for the nights entertainment.

Chienza arrived about 5 to start cooking and we all went off to spruce ourselves up for the party.

Everybody got very dressed up for the dinner and we had Prosecco and a few nibbles by the pool prior to sitting down to a wonderful dinner all home made by Chienza

As we were sitting at the table there was a fabulous sunset over the Tuscan hills

It was an absolutely wonderful evening with lots of laughter and stories and speeches and then out came the cake

It was a very late night and a few sore heads this morning but at last the Festival of Ro has been celebrated to the max and can be put that away after 2 and a half months.

Ciao