Thursday 22 May 2025 – With over 20km to walk today, and the prospect of some hills to climb, we opted for a reasonably prompt start. I felt I’d slept very badly, so the six o’clock alarm was not a welcome sound. I was astounded, therefore, on consulting Garmin Connect, the app for my activity monitor, to find that it, at least, was of the opinion that my Body Battery – its assessment of my energy levels – was well charged up, in stark contrast to preceding days. I wonder if this was a result of the pasta I’d had for lunch yesterday. I feel an experiment coming on…

Anyway, well-charged or not, we were under way shortly after 8am, into a cool morning, with some mist still visible in the hills.

Soon after leaving the outskirts of Buonconvento, the route took us to a grassy track

and before long we were back once more to wading through waist-high grass, which left our feet a bit damp, but was otherwise OK.

We passed a pond and Jane saw some movement in the water. At first we thought it was an otter, but actually, the pond contained coypu,

a large rodent, which neither of us had seen since we visited friends in France many years ago. In fact there were about five coypu there, in the water or on the bank.

We pressed on past the lovely scenery that is so abundant in these parts. After yesterday’s relative lack of vineyards, it was clear that we were back in Wine Country.

The track turned on to a dirt road

which took us past some fairly swanky-looking wineries, with their lovely cypress-lined driveways.

One of them, Carpazo, seemed keen to attract passing trade from pellegrinos

and bicigrinos.

We found out here why some of the vineyards have a “patchy corduroy” pattern when viewed from a distance.

Every other row was not mown. A tractor was running up and down the mown rows, pulling a crop sprayer which sprayed both sides

hence the need only to mow alternate rows. Mind you, a bit further on, we came across a tractor being used to mow every row, so there’s obviously a variety of viticultural approaches at work here.

We’d covered some 7km by this stage, and the track started to make one of the various climbs we knew we’d be doing.

Obviously, as we climbed, the views improved, and we got a decent look at a neighbouring mountaintop town called Montalcino.

It was a lot higher than us, so I was very glad it wasn’t on our route.

The landscape, as ever, was lovely.

We encountered a real pilgrim!

Sadly, my grab shot of him doesn’t really do him justice and I felt it would be intrusive to take more pics as he approached. He had a proper pilgrim’s walking pole, proper pilgrim sandals and was leading a donkey; on the donkey was riding a chihuahua

which made a cute sight.

As we breasted the top of a rise, the scenery changed, with evidence of landslips

and a more arable appearance, rather than vineyards.

Soon, we could clearly see a small town, Torrenieri

which marked (a) two-thirds of the distance and (b) more importantly, a coffee stop, at a bar called Ticci, although it seemed a normal size to me.

It also marked the start of another series of hills we had to climb – a smaller one, a larger one and then a final pull into our destination, San Quirico. The scenery was lovely

as long as one was selective!

We passed several ponds where it was clear that whatever yesterday’s noisy frogs were up to was the in thing for frogs to be getting up to. It is astonishing how loud the frog ponds were, and it made us smile as we walked by.

At one stage, we passed a possible diversion which would reportedly have taken us to The Classic Tuscan Panorama – a view over the Val d’Orcia which is apparently used all over the place. It being approximately two kilometres out of our way to get to it, we decided we really couldn’t be arsed, as the scenery we already had was pretty pleasant and markedly classic anyway.

Dirt road gave way to tarmac for a reasonably long stretch, and we had one pleasant surprise at a road junction. It’s an almost unbroken rule that where there’s a choice between two routes, the correct one is always the one that goes uphill. This junction

was an exception, and our route led down. Jane was delighted with the profusion of wild flowers that she spotted by the roadside, including some bee orchids. There were some nice scenery shots, too.

Soon, we could see San Quirico

and the road we were on would soon join a major road, so the track led off on another dirt road which went down to go under the major road.

This left us with the final pull up into San Quirico, during which we came across a chap with a long-handled hedge trimmer and a cherry picker who was actually shaving the cypress trees beside a posh-looking building.

I hadn’t realised that they needed that kind of maintenance. We also noted that at this particular property, the cypresses were supported by frames.

It seems that while cypresses grow naturally columnar, some people might like to manicure them to make them more uniform; and young trees can benefit from the frames to support them while they’re developing. (Thank you, ChatGPT.)

San Quirico hove into view above us

and, as before, catching sight of nice Tuscan scenery

served to distract from having to work that bit harder as we toiled up towards the town. We went under a viaduct

and – up a whole load of bloody steps – into the town,

to find that our B&B, La Locanda del Sorriso,

was closed up, with no-one home. It was only about 2.30, so we guessed that guests would perhaps be welcome after about 4pm and accordingly sought out some lunch.  Just along from the B&B was a square with two establishments on it

and it was easy to choose which to try. At first I was worried that the one we chose, called Vintage, didn’t do G&T, but actually they had a fine list of gins, including some from the Portobello distillery. Lunch was basic (lasagne for my pasta experiment, crostino for Jane) but good and included one of those “small world” occasions which make life so much more pleasant. A Dutch lass approached us and said “do I know you?”, which is an interesting conversational gambit. It turned out that she did – Jane (of course) had immediately worked out who she was, while I (of course) had no idea, since she was out of context. The context was M/V Hondius, the ship on which we had visited the Antardtic last year. She and her chap had been great company for some of the meals we took on board. He was working with the Dutch government on their various Covid measures; regrettably, we can’t remember either what her role was or, indeed her name. It was remarkable (a) that she was in the same place as us at the same time and (b) that she picked us out as familiar faces. I am really impressed that she did that, and it was lovely to have a chat with her for a while.

Lunch therefore took us until just after 4pm, when we wandered back towards the B&B. Co-incidentally, the lady who looks after it was also headed that way and somehow or other picked us out as tourists – amazing, that feminine intuition – so we were able to get into our room. The B&B is run remotely – no-one in residence and breakfast is via a coupon for a local eatery – but seems comfortable enough.

Since the B&B provided a kettle but no milk, we went for a walk. Obviously. The church on the square where we took our lunch is Chiesa di San Francesco.and its bells are mad.

We took a look inside it,

and the Collegiate Church that had greeted us as we walked into the town.

One feature in this church is marquetry panelling for the choir seating dating from the late 1400s

which was originally installed in the baptistry in Siena, but started to degrade. So one of the canons here bought seven of the panels that were in the best condition and installed them here. Here’s an example of one, and very fine work it is, too.

The town also sports a Pieve (monastery)

which we took a look inside

and we ended our walk, having triumphantly bought the milk at the local Coop, by coming through the 15th-century ornamental garden.

This is very difficult to convey photographically, so once we’d got back to the B&B, I got the drone out and whizzed it up to take a photo of it

and the town itself.

I also took a video, if you have a couple of minutes to spare.

That was about it for the day. We have a very light day tomorrow – just some 10km to walk – but en route there are a couple of Things To See, so we will take a look at them and report back in the fullness, for your delectation.