11.6.8 A ROOM WITH A VIEW

“Be Still my Throbbing Heart,” she gasped.
“Is it all you expected honey?”
“More than you'll ever know!,” she says as she works the digital overtime.
“We need to hurry, lunch is at 1PM and we still have to get down the mountain.”
“Just a few more pictures… I cant believe you found this fabulous view,” as she clicks away.

You'd have thought I had just handed her a pocket of gold. We'll it almost was. "Tuscan Golden" sunshine flooding the valley below and the light in her eyes. It was THE ROOM... with THE View!

But let’s start with the wake up knock from room service for our last morning on the Carnival Freedom.

They had given us numbered bag tags to identify our debarkation order but even if we were lugging our own bags off, we sill had to wait until 8AM. Getting off the ship was not too bad… including the hike to the gate. I left Illy there with the bags and hiked the ¼ mile to bring up the car, and after loading up, we were off to Montalcino, halfway between Rome and Firenze… along the same route we went the day before.

First stop is Castelo Banfi to confirm our tour and lunch, since these were the only directions we had. Finding it was supposed to be fairly straight forward, of course getting there via the Google directions was a bit challenging since the directions, and the road signs didn't always agree. This of course involved several Girare-u’s [U-turns] which we are VERY practiced at.

After navigating the turns through Grosetto and Paganico 

[another cool little town] as we approached our turn off to Montalcino, we could see the Castelo on the hilltop and wound our way up. Again, as usual, the vista and countryside we passed was incredible. Vineyards, olive groves, grazing pastures were layered 

along the hillsides we drove through.

After confirming our arrangements at Banfi [THANK YOU STEVIE!!!]

And after a taking what appeared to be a shortcut across the mountain top…

“Oh look honey…lets try this way...”

Which turned out to be a dirt service road, a quick girare-

u and we head back down the hill to the road that will take usup a different even more winding mountain road to Montalcino..

Directions to our hotel from the ladies at

Banfi were a bit sketchy and as we approached the ancient walled community of Montalcino we were a bit anxious about

directional markings. Not to worry… knowing that the Hotel Dei Capitani was on the other side of town from the Gate, we took the road that circled the town and after one missed turn and a side trip that wound up in a parking lot, we found the center of town and behold… the sign pointing down a VERRRYYYYY narrow 30 degree street to “Hotel dei Capitani.”

Check in was a breeze and the lovely Nicola took us up to our room on the 3rd floor. Opening the inside shutters to the window she stepped back to reveal…

THE VIEW.

I only hope the pictures come close to revealing the complete beauty we beheld. I can’t begin to describe the view… let alone the look on Dragon Chic’s face when she looked out on the quintessential Tuscan countryside from the top of the mountain. Vineyards, olive groves, 

sheep grazing, adorable ancient farm houses… it had it all. The movie “Under the Tuscan Sun” did not have the panoramas that the view from room 304 of Hotel dei Capitani has. And the Village is as quaint as the view is rich.

We had to pry ourselves away and rush back down the winding mountain road [blasting past a local Carbinari speed trap… I'm sure Avis will be getting a ticket for that one] and back up another hill to Castelo Banfi for Lunch with selected wines and our tour of the winery.

Guess this has to be a multi-parter… because there is way more to this day than we can cover in just one episode.

Ciao 4 Now

Chuck and the totally blown away by the view and cute little town, Dragon Lady.