When Matt, Michael, and I got challenged on a 25 kilometer hike by Professor Cochran, there was no choice but to join. We even decided to wake up 2 hours earlier than planned, which was a curse turned into a blessing. The first part of our hike was not bad at all. It was a perfect temperature and the hike was pretty flat. It was good bonding with the group, and I thouroughly enjoyed checking out the beautiful scenery. The first city we stopped at was Piensa. It had a similar style as Montepulciano, but looked a little more modern to me. They had a shop with the craziest kinds of cheeses; I wish I had room to bring some back because I probably will never see anything like that again. We walked into one of their churches and caught a little bit of their service; it was in Italian so I couldn't understand it, but it was interesting to watch how it differed from my church at home. We were pretty hungry so we stopped to get a fresh prosciutto sandwich, and were hoping to get the "best gelato around", but it was not open for a couple more hours. After our little break we headed to Monticchiello, which was where the hike started to pickup in intensity. It was now around noon, and the sun was unforgiving. Hills started to emerge, and my calves were getting a little tight. Once we got to Monticchiello, we all took a much needed break, and luckily their was a water pump where we could refill our waters. In total I think we finished 20 liters of water as a group, although some of it was used in a water bottle fight. While waiting we got to witness a group of kids play soccer in the streets with one taking a shot to the noggin, which was a definite positive. The city of Monticchiello was a lot different looking then Piensa and Montepulciano. It almost reminded me of the architecture I saw when I was in Brazil a couple of years ago. The city was very quiet, you could probably hear a pen drop with ease. We used Monticchiello as a quick pit stop, and proceeded to the final stretch of the hike. However, final stretch is a major understatement, as there was 5 miles remaining. Which exclusively consisted of straight up and down hills that made Kilimanjaro look wimpy. This is where I gained new appreciation for professor Cochran as he kept up with us the entire way. I thought someone was for sure going to go down with a cramp, but everyone successfully made it up into the city. Maybe Mike's stolen vineyard grapes gave us the energy to prevail past the last ascent. Nevertheless, we survived and were rewarded with gelato for outlasting natural selection.
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| Suicide Squad in action |
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| #selfie #toohotforashirt #dehydration |
Italian Excursion, American Version
Our first excursion was to the beautiful city of Orvietto. I thought it was extremely interesting that the city was built on a plateau and there are cliffs all around it. Orvietto was much more busy than all the cities I have previously visited. The first place we visited here was a mammoth of a cathedral. The biggest and most beautiful cathedral I have ever seen. I am stunned how people hundreds of years ago, let alone now, could build a structure like the Doumo di Orvietto. Inside the cathedral was even more impressive than the outside. The murals, and paintings lining the roof and walls were incredible. Im not sure how it compares to the Sistine Chapel because I have never been there but I was awestruck by it. After leaving the Cathedral we headed to the caves beneath the city. It tied my excitement level with the cathedral due to the fact that it was about 60 degrees beneath the soil. It is crazy to me that the whole city of Orvietto has not collapsed due to the caves dug throughout. Almost every house and building has a cave under it, so the whole city is standing on columns of dirt. Some have started to crack and have been replaced with reinforced concrete. The Caves purposes varied throughout history. Their original purpose was to for the need for concrete to build houses above, and later was turned into an olive oil "factory", pigeon breeding rooms, and bomb shelters. I had never been in a cave that deep and big so I really enjoyed checking out the forest beneath the city. Once we left the caves we had about an hour before we headed back to our adopted homes. We wandered around looking for some food and accidentally stumbled into the best gelato I have so far. I will forever remember you Il Gelato!
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| Three Dudes and a Doumo |
Wine and Dine
Ken Hill was kind enough to arrange a wine tasting on the outskirts of the Montepulciano Gates. I have never been to a wine tasting before, and was excited to see how it all works. Once again I was elated to go below ground into a cool room and beat the brutal Italian heat. We all lined up opposite sides a long table and were given a history of the Crociani wine by the owner Susanna Crociani. She was an extremely kind and generous women as she let us taste her wine for free. All her wine was very important to her, which was evident in the story she told about the wine she created for her brother. Im man enough to admit that a tear as on the verge of coming out. I cannot say I am an expert on wine, but all of them were tasty! The cheese and meats hit the spot as well!
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| Shoutout to Susanna Crocian for the free wine |
Meal of the Week
Ladies and Gentleman, my world famous meal of the week post is back! I had a lot of astounding choices to choose from this week, but I am going to have to go with an upset no one saw coming. Ritz crackers, Calve peanut butter, and local Monte bananas. I know what you are thinking how is this possible, I could eat this meal anywhere? Well you are wrong. The perfect Montepulciano air quality and wind flow mixes up the flavors like a Bill Nye lab experiment. The local bananas, Italian peanut butter (which I now prefer to Jiff), and ritz go perfect with the savage hunger that I build up in the morning. Not only do the flavors perfectly blend together, but it satisfies my hunger until the free 7:00 dinners, so that I do not have to spend money on food during the week. Tasty and cost effective...how could this not be the meal of the week!
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| I swear it is better than it looks! |
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