MONUMENTS AND TOURIST ROUTES
The town has a peculiar structure: it is built along a nose line from upperside to downside and nowadays it shows a 1,5 km long central course way that starting from Porta al Prato it leads to the Piazza Grande by an inclination of 50-60 mt:
the houses are spread all along the main course and along a series of short and tight ways, often steep, that run nearly perpendicular to it. Almost all the most relevant buildings face over the main way thus showing a long series of high design façades.
ART, CULTURE AND SPARE TIME
For ages Montepulciano has been the main cultural centre in western Valdichiana almost up to nowadays. The theatre activity is certified almost since the half of the 17th century: in that eve an Academy (named as: the Raggirati; the Cheated) that often used to demand the Commune different forms of intervention as a support of their own plays.
FOOD & WINE
The local cooking recipes are very simple and typically peasant: hard wheat or maize flour, bread, extra virgin olive oil, beans, milk and good wine are among the main ingredients.
The local main recipe are the PICI: after melting flour and water you obtain an homogeneous knead and then you make thin ropes of pasta by your hand palms.
By the same pasta (by adding only eggs) you make MACCHERONI or TAGLIATINI. By the dried bread you make PANZANELLA, a sort of salad dressed with exceeding extravirgin olive oil and enriched in aromas such as onion, basil, wild mynth or you can even obtain the RIBOLLITA, made up of dried slices of bread wet by beans broth.
NOBILE WINE FROM MONTEPULCIANO
The wine calling of that area and the very high consideration whose the Nobile Wine from Montepulciano enjoys were known almost in the 8th century after Christ.
At the beginning of 1800 Mr Repetti, in his  ?Dizionario Geografico Fisico Storico della Toscana? mentioned an instrument dated of 17th of october 1350 by which you could establish a wine marking company as a proof that the tasty wine of that area used to be exported even in past eves.
Even Sante Lancerio, the bottle holder of the Pope Paolo the 3rd Farnese, in his notebook about travels of search for the most precious wines for the Pope, in 1549 it stated the Nobile Wine as "very perfect wine for Lords ("vino perfettissimo, da Signori?).
Therefore it will be above all the poet and medic from Arezzo Francesco Redi to make the Nobile wine famous in 17th century by means of his famous dytirambus "Bacco in Toscana" where he imaginarily accompanies Bacco and Arianna in the examination of all the precious wines in Toscana.
Mr. Redi here invents that saying that we all know nowadays and whose all the Polizianos (Montepulciano people) are proud: "Montepulciano d'ogni vino è re" (Montepulciano is the king of the wine productions).
The adjective "Nobile" should come from the  fact that superior quality wine in the past was a good only reserved for aristocracy of Montepulciano area.
The Nobile wine from Montepulciano has been one of the first Italian wines of  high quality and ancient fame to obtain the DOC certification on july the 12th 1966 while it is the absolute first wine in Italy to get the DOCG certification thus celebrating it as the wine among the best one in Italy.
Other precious wines produced in the same area are the Rosso from Montepulciano DOC, the Bianco Vergine from Val di Chiana DOC, the Chianti Colli Senesi DOC and the more and more precious and wanted Vin Santo DOC.