Tag Archives: Nature

Day 6 – Monteriggioni to Siena – Long but not too hard

Saturday 17 May 2025 – We were up not with the lark but with the blackbird, which started singing shortly before our alarm was due to go off at 05:30. We took a prompt breakfast in order to get out quickly, since the official distance of 20km made this one of the longer days since we started out from Altopascio. (I’ve noted before that I feel this route has been tougher than the Camino Francés that we did 18 months ago. Actually, on the Camino, we typically covered longer distances then; but the Via (so far) has been much more hilly, which has made the days tougher.)

The hotel is definitely posh. You can tell because it actually offered hot food at breakfast, so I was able to construct a passable imitation of a bacon butty to go with my cup of Twining’s finest Earl Grey.

Then it was time to head off across the fields to rejoin the Via. The lowering mass of Monteriggioni squats atop a hill; once we got to the foot of the hill we started up really quite a steep path.

At its steepest, just before the gate into the fortress,

I measured the slope as 14.5°

which a short conversation with ChatGPT established is actually slightly steeper than 1 in 4. Bloody steep, in short. Although we had only covered around 4km by the time we passed through the gate, we felt we’d earned a coffee stop. While Jane and Caroline relaxed, I popped over the road and whizzed the drone up for a quick photo of the whole place.

You can see how tiny it is.

After our coffee, we bade farewell to Monteriggioni

and moved on

working our way steadily towards our goal – Siena, the end of this section of the Via. The S-cape app described today’s walk as short, easy and unencumbered by any “road houses”, i.e. coffee stops. It was wrong on two of the three counts: our total distance for the day was 24.5km (only Day 1 was longer) and there were actually a couple of rest stops along the way, one of which was delightful (see later).

As before, the going was varied – some tarmac, some dirt road and some tracks.

There were stretches where balletic leaps across muddy patches were required, or where the going underfoot was pretty rocky.

Muddiness and rocks were, however, no barrier for some of the lunatic fringe who came past us.

The Powers That Be clearly wanted to make sure that we stayed on track;

there are no fewer than five waymarks in this picture.

We passed a reference to the Camino de Santiago

a helpful household’s support for passing pilgrims

Just a tap through the wall, and a notice that the water is OK for drinking

and some nice roadside shrines.

For much of the route, the countryside, while pleasant and rural, was otherwise unremarkable

though there were patches where poppies had taken over; at one point they almost seemed to form a river.

We took a rest in order to eat our hotel-provided sandwiches on a convenient bench overlooking a monument

which, its info board told us, was erected after the area, which had originally been a swamp, had been drained; the monument was a tribute to man’s ability to shape nature. The swamp might have been cleared, but the mosquitoes hadn’t noticed.

One falls to meditating on the long stretches of road when not much else is happening. I saw this sign

which had flashing lights and warned that there were pedestrians in the road, and wondered how the hell did they know we were there?

We passed another sign, this one telling us that there was a “punta ristoro” in a couple of kilometres, which, given the S-cape info, was unexpected. Between us and it were a couple of castles:

Castello della Chiocciola, the origins of which are possibly from the 14th century, but which certainly was mentioned in despatches in 1555 when it played a part in the battle which ended in the fall of Siena; and Castello di Villa, a medieval building which was apparently historically important for pilgrims on the Via Francigena. This takes its name from (or possibly gives it to) the local area, which has a few houses which look to have been recently spiffed up, a sort of village green to give you an idea of its personality

and – eventually – the “punto ristoro”, which describes itself as a punto sosta – a place of sustenance.

“Extension” round the back

It’s a delightful place, offering all kinds of goodies – various foods including cakes, pastries, eggs and fruit – coffee or tea, and a place to sit and rest. No money is demanded; the place runs off donations, and has a very genial atmosphere.  There are many nice touches

and a lovely vegetable garden round the back.

Informal as it seemed, it did appear that the place also operated as a B&B; all slightly eccentric and utterly charming. Of course we took a break there.

Slightly further along, there was an Agriturismo place, Casalino 18, offering lunch-time wine-tasting, sandwiches and juices – another rest stop that had escaped the notice of S-cape.

Shortly after that, we apparently reached SIena!

Ah. No. Bugger. Still a few kilometres to go. We ploughed on. At least we only had a few kilometres to go; other destinations were much further away.

The pleasantly unvarying rural scenery gave way to a vista worth a photo

and… had we really reached Siena?

Sadly, not quite – still a couple of kilometres to go. That lovely view was basically the hill we then had to climb to get to the city proper.  But we did get there, walking through increasingly urban surroundings until we reached a very obvious entry point to the historic city.

This is the gate through which pilgrims traditionally enter the city. We were a bit tired and frazzled by this stage, so couldn’t quite be arsed to do this; but we did go through another walled archway

which, eagle-eyed readers will notice, sports the Medici coat of arms, and into the old city proper.

and eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, to our hotel,

the very elegant and slightly eccentric Hotel Chiusarelli. It’s a nice place, and we were courteously welcomed, but the way they’ve set the rooms out is odd, to say the least. Our room was no. 24, which was on the top floor (up 50 steps!). Caroline’s, no.35, was along a corridor and down some stairs. Our bags had arrived and (praise be!) been put in our rooms, and Lorenzo and Barbara on reception made sure that we could find our way through their mini labyrinth to our rooms.

Although the walk hadn’t been as arduous as those on some of the other days, we were still in need of a rest, and so it was a couple of hours later that we ventured out for a look at Siena – my first, as I’ve never been here before. We had hoped to get into the cathedral, the Duomo, but, sadly, had left it too late. By telling us that its closing time was 7pm, Google had traduced us – it closed at 5.30, so we had to make do with seeing it in its magnificant, city-dominating, setting

before taking a look at the baptistry

and the facade.

Opposite the Duomo is the church of Santa Maria della Scala, which has a breathtaking interior, with a stunning fresco behind the altar.

We also visited the main square of the city, the Campo di Siena

before heading back to the hotel for an evening meal in their restaurant. The food was excellent, but we discovered another eccentricity, in that they don’t serve spirits, so a G&T with the meal was not an option. However, it was a lovely meal and a chance for final conversation with Caroline before we bade her farewell; she has to travel home tomorrow, and even a friendship as deep as ours doesn’t extend to getting up at sparrow fart simply to say goodbye at 6.30am. (Stop Press: we have learned that she made it home in good order.)

We now have two whole days at leisure in Siena before we head off on the next segment of the Via. Our time includes a guided tour and we hope to get inside the Duomo, so, with good luck and a following tide I should be able to bring you more information about and photos of this splendid city. Stay tuned!

 

 

 

 

 

Day 6 – Luna Azul to Casitas Tenorio, Bijagua

Friday 24 February 2023 – Our time at the very pleasant Luna Azul ended today and so, after goodbyes with Olivier and Rolf, we hit the road.

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Our destination was near a town called Bijagua, which is normally about a three-hour drive from Ostional. However, Olivier’s wife, Maria, had told us about a place where we might be able to see some macaws – at a café called Mi Finca at Limonal. Unbeknownst to us at the time, this had been on our route down to Luna Azul in the first place (at one of the points where pilot error gave us a few extra kilometres to cover). We decided we could make our journey to Bijagua go via this place at an overall cost of only about half an hour, which seemed an inviting plan.

Luna Azul is on the Nicoya peninsula and, as I think I’ve mentioned, driving there is not the most straightforward of activities. Indeed, it sometimes requires some very sudden sideways moves to avoid the traps which lie in wait for the unwary.

Sometimes the road goes from dirt track to very reasonable tarmac for no very obvious reason

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and then, of course, can switch back just as suddenly, again without provocation.

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There are narrow bridges

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and every so often the nice tarmac is dotted with pitfalls

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so it’s fair to say that the drive for this part of the journey was not all that relaxing. To be fair the dirt roads are by and large easy to drive on, if rather noisy, so really the driver just has to keep an eye out for the odd occasional elephant trap. After a while, the route joins proper, grown-up roads and the surface for these is remarkably good (Surrey Council, take note, please).

It was around 12.30 when we reached Mi Finca and stopped for (a) more fuel for the car (where the nice attendant carefully washed the layers of dust off our front and back windows, which was very good of him), (b) coffee and other sustenance (Jane had a torta chilena, the local answer to Chile’s Milhojas) and (c) a shot at some macaws. With a camera, that is.

We found a couple of them in a tree nearby.

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Not the scarlet macaws that we might have seen had we been prepared to brave the warzone roads leading to the specialist centre in the south of the Nicoya peninsula, but a pleasure to see these beautifully coloured birds up close.

I’m not quite sure what the macaw situation is at Mi Finca; I think there’s supposed to be some kind of sanctuary where they feed macaws to attract them there, but it’s not quite clear. We chatted to a Dutchman who said that had seen 10 birds there when he last visited. He was a bit doleful about the whole thing, but for us it was macaws for celebration.

The Mi Finca roundabout is a major interchange where, as I said, we missed the turn on our way to Ostional. This meant that we joined the road – a big piece of modern and ongoing construction – that we’d had to go along searching for a U-turn a couple of days earlier. It’s obviously a road that has its own little twilight zone because a little further on, without either of us realising it, we failed to take the correct exit again. This added a few more kilometres to the route whilst we again searched for a U-turn to get us back to the correct route.

The (short) rest of the journey to Bijagua went through much more open countryside, with some nice views – altogether a pleasimg ambience –

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and we were soon at Casitas Tenorio, which calls itself a B&B, but which is altogether a more major operation, with a central lodge

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surrounded by “casitas” – small houses, like the one we were staying in (called “El Volcan”).

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We also discovered that it’s located in its own grounds which include a nature trail and a farm that provides produce for the breakfasts that they serve. One further discovery we made on unloading the car was that, tragically, the gin bottle had leaked! Actually, I don’t think we lost a huge amount, but it was a moment of the utmost concern, as you can well imagine.

There was more than a small ripple of excitement when the assistant manager of the place told us that there were a couple of sloths in trees near one of the unoccupied cabins. Actually, this was a really exciting and unexpected development, so of course we had to try to spot them. One, a three-toed sloth, was being (for a sloth) very active, i.e. it was moving a bit. Normally, sloths move at about four metres a minute, though they can up this to four and a half if in danger.

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When I say it was “moving about a bit”, what I mean is that it was simply spending almost all of its time scratching itself, so my illusions about how wonderful a life of sloth would be were completely shot away. Also, it made the video footage a bit dull, hence just the still photos. That sloths move so little makes them fascinating studies – apparently they are the host for entire ecosystems of fungi, parasites and insects, as well as the moss that can grow on their fur. They leave the trees only to defecate and urinate once a week. In that exercise, because they have been consuming kilograms of leaves every day, they lose something like a third of the body weight they have accumulated since the last time.

The other sloth was a young two-toed sloth and it was sleeping.

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Frankly, I could have told you that the above was a video and you’d hardly have known I was pulling your leg. Apparently, all sloths have three toes on their rear limbs, but two-toed sloths have only two on their forelimbs, which are thus not really toes after all. So that’s two fingers to the three-toed nomenclature in their case.

We had the rest of the day free, so the first priority was to use the handy kitchenette in our casita to make very welcome mugs of Twining’s finest Earl Grey – the first such to have passed our lips for what seemed like weeks but was actually only a couple of days, Then we went for a walk. Obviously.

The nature trail here is about a kilometre long, mainly through forest.

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(I love this kind of root system, which is an adaptation to get maximum nutrition to the tree in poor soil conditions – and also to help hold up the shallow-rooted trees.) There is a diversion to an observation platform

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and on the way to it, we discovered several termite nests

and a leaf-cutter ant trail,

watched, rather morosely it seemed, by a groove-billed ani.

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You’ll have to read tomorrow’s blog entry to find out how come I knew what species this bird is. Amid all this exotica was a more familiar sight, and one of which I’m particularly fond – hydrangeas of a lovely blue colour.

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And that was the last activity for the day before addressing ourselves to some of what remained of the gin prior to an early night, as we had an early start to be ready for the next day. Only because we’re on holiday travelling, of course. Never happens at home.

So, please come back to find out why we had an early start and what transpired thereafter. I promise you won’t be disappointed, and this is my money-back guarantee to you.

Stanley Nice

Thursday 1 September 2022 – Our last day in Vancouver dawned bright and sunny, with the prospect of the weather staying that way all day.  Guess how we spent most of it?  Yup – we went for a walk.  The obvious area for us to explore, because we’d gone in most other directions, was northwards to Stanley Park.  Exploring there fitted our schedule which had to include a couple of other items, one tedious but necessary and the other much more appealing. We had to be back by about 4pm, so that allowed us our usual latish breakfast before we set out – no mad dogs, but two English folk going out in the midday sun.

Our route gave me the opportunity to try a second time at photographing a couple of scenes.  The first was the “Cauldron”, created for the 2010 Winter Olympics here.  This time it wasn’t beset by hordes of people dressed in white.

Nearby was something we hadn’t spotted before – a highly pixellated statue of an Orca.

As we walked towards the park, we were overtaken by a paddle steamer (or “sternwheeler” as they call them in these here parts)

and we walked along the pleasant pedestrian trail, nicely segregated from hordes of people shooting by on various wheeled contraptions, through the gentrified Coal harbour, near which is another interesting architectural exhibit.

As well as trees and general greenery, of which there’s a thousand acres overall, there are many items of interest in the park.  Statues abound:


Robbie Burns, for no particular reason beyond the fact that he was famous, but I suppose the justification could be verse;


Harry Jerome, BC Athlete of the Century 1871 – 1971, holder of several world records, including 10.0 seconds for the 100 metres (1960); and


Lord Stanley,16th Earl of Derby, after whom the park is named.

There’s a miniature railway, which is jolly cute

and of which I had formed a mental image as having a steam train pulling the carriages. However

I was disabused of that notion. It’s still cute, but would be really something if they could actually manage a steam engine.

We’d been walking for about an hour by this stage in temperatures which were officially in the low 20s but which, in the full sunshine, felt a lot higher. So when we passed the rose garden

and its inviting pavilion

the prospect of a coffee or similar became very attractive. The staff seemed a little taken aback by having actual customers, but eventually things got into gear and we got decent coffee, and I had a beer to replace the electrolytes lost thus far on such a hot day.

Our wanderings then led us to the banks of Beaver Lake. At first it was challenging to believe that it was actually a lake

But it was, really.

We then headed towards the trail that leads round the edge of the park, as we wanted to see the Lions Gate Bridge, the large suspension bridge that crosses Vancouver Harbour to the north. Or south, if you’re coming back. It’s very impressive

but kind of difficult to convey photographically. We spent some time trying to do this and, basically, failing, so turned back to walk the waterside trail hotelwards. This took us past a small beach

and towards some further curiosities: a lumberman’s arch;

a kids’ splashpark;

a replica figurehead of the SS Empress of Japan, which took cargo to and from the orient around the turn of the 20th century –

presumably worth displaying because figureheads went out of fashion pretty sharply once steam ships, erm, took off; and a statue called “Girl In A Wetsuit”

Though initially Gull In A Wetsuit seemed more appropriate. Eventually the annoying bird left and I could get a proper version

and we carried on round the edge of the park. There’s never a dull moment: totem poles;

a splendid view of the sulphur processing facility on the opposite shore of the harbour (it’s from Alberta, apparently – the sulphur, that is, not the machinery);

the Nine O’Clock Gun

with its warning

(which is helpful, but goes nowhere near explaining why there’s a loud bang every night);  evidence that the segregated walking/cycling trail had its roots well before cycling became cool;

And even – gasp! – some wildlife.

Heron and harbour seal respectively and unconcernedly fishing and sunbathing (upside-down) as city life went on around them.

We’d walked a fair bit, but it’s clear from the map of our ramblings that we’d left a lot of the park unexplored,

Maybe we’ll be able to get back in some future life and explore further….

As you leave the park, there’s the very impressive HQ of the Vancouver Rowing Club

and then you join the trail leading back into Vancouver city. This gave me an opportunity to get some nice photos of my favourite type: reflections,

including a second attempt at one I tried on our previous visit;

 

I’m a bit happier with this version.

This brought us back to the city and the first, tedious, one of the two things we had to achieve – checking in for the Rocky Mountaineer, which will be our home for the next couple of days as we start Part Two. Our advance party (otherwise known as brother Chris, who has been about a month ahead of us on his version of a Canadian odyssey) had reported scenes of queues, chaos and confusion at the Pan Pacific Hotel, where a check-in facility had been set up. So we went in to scout out the scene. What we found was just a genteel and well-behaved (but quite long) queue,

So, since I know my place, I did my job as queue placeholder whilst Jane nipped back to the room for the paperwork. Over about half an hour we slowly edged forward and eventually reached the front. Because Jane is superbly well-organised, there was no call for chaos, or indeed confusion; we had all the right paperwork to hand, had checked in online and had our boarding passes; and so very swiftly got our baggage tags and instructions. These included being ready to leave our hotel at 0650 the next day, unfortunately, but, hey, that’s the price we pay for being on holiday.

That then (preparatory packing aside) left the way clear for the second, happily anticipated task, which was to meet the Delightful Danes, Philina and Søren, whose company we’d enjoyed so much in Farewell Harbour. Philina got in touch via this very blog and we established that we overlapped for one evening in Vancouver, so we went to meet them at a local eatery called Riley’s and had a very fine time. They had also had great luck with the wildlife at the lodge – fishing bears and breaching humpbacks, for example – and had visited a couple of wonderful sounding places. It was lovely to catch up with them, and I hope we will get a chance to meet them again some time in the future.

Then all we had to do was to set the alarm for 0530 in preparation for the start of Part Two – The Rocky Mountain Bit. Be assured that whenever I can get time and internet access I will report back, so please keep an eye out for the next thrilling installment.