Angel Choir

We heard angels sing.

Well, not really. But they sounded pretty enough to be angels. We heard the Augustinian monks of the Abbey of Sant’ Antimo chant their Gregorian prayers. The abbey is located deep in the heart of Tuscany, just outside of Montalcino. The monks have been chanting since the Middle Ages. (Well, to be honest, I think they take breaks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.)

But I needed to hear angels sing after taking the things we wanted to ship to Mailbox Etc. in Poggibonsi. As I mentioned, this was package number one of what will probably end up being two packages that we will mail home. The total cost of this one package? 150 euros. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we paid more than 225 US dollars to ship home a package with contents that collectively likely don’t even come close to that much money. Yikes! But it includes all of my meager souvenirs that I have purchased for my family, and various and sundry things that we were pretty sure we couldn’t live without in Europe, and certainly can’t live without back in the United States. Oh well. In the words of that famous philosopher My Husband, it’s only money.

After recovering from our sticker shock, we headed off towards Montalcino. What a pretty ride. For the first part of the drive, we saw grapevines and olive trees. Soon, the scenery changed to fields and fields of sunflowers separated by fields and fields of hay. It was absolutely lovely.

As we neared Montalcino, we again started seeing vineyards. The area is famous for the wonderful Brunello wine. They compete against neighboring Montepulciano for the best red wine. I personally think it’s a tie.

We got there around 1 o’clock, and the prayers we hoped to hear them sing would be at 2:45. So we stopped for lunch at a nearby restaurant.

It was sort of a funny experience. They didn’t have a menu, and prepare their foods fresh (including their pastas) each day. So they more or less came out and told us what we would be eating as opposed to us ordering. We had a pasta salad made with fresh vegetables that they apparently grow themselves. We watched them come out of the kitchen and cut basil from the pots growing on the patio. The bread was fresh baked and very delicious. And the wine? Wonderful, of course.

The abbey church was very beautiful, but not fancy like the other churches we’ve seen, which makes a lot of sense of course. I just finished reading Pillars of Fire, by Ken Follett, the novel about the building of a cathedral in England. For those who have read the novel, the church reminded me a great deal of the description of the original cathedral. Wood ceilings, small windows. Simple, but very pretty.

There were about 12 monks participating in this prayer service. They conduct all of their prayers using Gregorian chant, as they believe that song is the greatest way to give glory to God, and they pray every three hours. All of the prayer services are open to the public, but there were only six or seven of us there on Monday. The chanting is beautiful, really sounding like the singing of angels. I enjoyed it very much, though it is all, of course, in Latin.

As we drove home, we stopped very briefly in Montalcino. It is a very pretty hill town that I would love to spend more time visiting some day. As we pulled out of the parking lot, our GPS told us to go a certain way. Bill was convinced that we were going to end up on one of those little narrow roads again, so he chose to ignore the directions. Well. We ended up driving down a steep, one-lane gravel road that wound around vineyards for about 4 kilometers before we finally got on a decent road. Never a dull moment. We have the option of buying our rental car at the end of our lease. After everything we gone through, all of the harrowing roads we’ve driven, I think not.