Sunday 25 May 2025 – I’ve just learned that today is Towel Day. I hope you all know where your towel is. Today, mine was in my backpack against the need to dry my feet in case of an unsuccessful Ford (Prefect?) crossing. Admittedly, that likelihood was faint, as there were no fords on today’s walk, but still; I knew where my towel was.
Another thing I learned is how to pronounce Radicofani. I had been putting the emphasis on the “fan” bit of the word, but this is wrong. It should, rather, rhyme with “cacophony”. I hope this nugget comes in useful for some of you at your swish dinner parties.
And so to today’s walk, which was dull, but had points of interest and produced many photographs. The dull bit was the actual walking, which was largely downhill, on dirt roads and in pitiless sunshine. The temperature was not high – still around 20°C – but it was hot in the direct sunlight; and we spent some two-and-a-half hours walking downhill, on the gravelly, dusty strade bianche (the “white roads” of Tuscany) under those conditions. I am normally as in favour of downhill walking as I am sullenly against uphill work, but 150 minutes of quite steep descent is quite hard work.
Before we started our downhill walking, though, we were given a good breakfast and taken, along with another couple of British pellegrinos, to the centre of Radicofani. Time was getting on by that stage, so we didn’t spend a lot of time in the town, but did look around a bit before starting to walk towards our destination for the day, Acquapendente. (I should point out that Acqua was not at all Pendente during the day – the forecast was for sunshine, with no rain.)
We looked first into the cathedral, the church of St. Peter.
The altar piece is, unusually, ceramic (terracotta with polychrome glazes) and by Andrea Della Robbia, a 15th-century Florentine sculptor.
A side chapel held what was possibly another piece from the Della Robbia workshop.
Across the street is the church of St. Agata with yet another such piece.
Neither, sadly, provided us with a Timbro, a stamp for our credenziali passport.
The lady who drove us into the town pointed out a square we should visit, the Piazzatta del Teatro, as a very Tuscan square. It is, indeed, very pretty.
It’s also, probably, the last typically Tuscan thing we’ll see, since Radicofani is the last town in Tuscany if you’re heading south on the Via Francigena.
The tower that makes Radicofani so easily identifiable from distance is a fortress and is up a bloody steep hill from the town, so I hope you’ll forgive us for not toiling up there. I suppose I could have tried getting a drone shot at it, but frankly we wanted to get on with the walking (this being before it was borne in on us how tedious it would be).
The fortress has a personality associated with it, the local equivalent of Robin Hood, Ghino di Tacco. In 1297, he took possession of the Fortress, dominating the territory with his deeds and raids, but always taking care to leave his victims enough to live on. To some he was a “punisher of injustice and powerful men”, for others simply a “daring bandit.” In Radicofani, there is a square with his name
with, at the far end, an artwork portraying him in action, which can be seen with the tower in the background.
So we departed Radicofani
and headed down on the endlessly downhill dirt road
which at least gave us a decent view back up to the fortress and tower.
Because we were still at altitude, we got fabulous views to combat the tedium of tramping downhill. The favourite local volcano, Mount Amiati, was clearly visible
and you could just make out steam rising from a local thermal pool driven by the volcanic forces at work;
there are, apparently, five thermal baths around the area, courtesy of the local volcanoes; Radicofani sits atop the other.
A word here about water. A fellow walker (and much more adventurous hiker), Ian Burley, who is currently scrambling up and down dangerous slopes in Spain, asked about the availability of water along this route. His current wanderings have taken him to the wilds of the Spanish wilderness where he is undertaking the sort of hard-core hiking which Jane and I will never do; he has to take litres of water with him every day. We, however, have never had any problem with keeping hydrated. We take maybe three litres between us each day and have yet to finish half of what we’ve taken; possibly a reflection of the relative coolness of the weather at the moment. The Via Francigena is well supplied with sources of potable water, which are well signposted.
The Radicofani tower dominates the landscape for a long time as one descends along the Via
but one can sense the landscape changing,
and becoming less suitable for arable farming and better suited to sheep.
We came to another of those unusual junctions where the correct way is down, not up.
and grimly carried on down.
About half way down the descent there was a rather nice pilgrims’ rest point
better suited, I suppose, to those going up than to those descending. There’s even a selfie point.
so a solo traveller can set up his or her phone to take the selfie using the frame.
A corn bunting watched us carry on down
and we passed a heap of sheep.
Quite why they were bundled together like this at the top end of a field we don’t know. The geology showed that some significant land movements had happened over the aeons
which is why the land is unsuitable for crop farming, I guess.
Eventually, we reached the bottom of the descent, at Ponte a Rigo. The S-cape app said that we could take lunch there, and we were hoping that a bar that had escaped the notice of Google Maps would materialise; but no.
Just a church. A sign shortly before had had the icons of a fork and a cup, which had raised our hopes, but presumably they were referring to the picnic spot there.
It was occupied when we arrived, but the people, a Swiss couple of bicigrinos, were just departing and we had an affable chat with them, and wished them luck on their onward journey – up into Radicofani! Bloody lunatics.
The tedious descent in the pitiless sunshine morphed into a slightly less tedious walk in the pitiless sunshine along a farm track beside the road, past a few rural features of note: an enormous multi-arch irrigation boom;
some aestivating snails;
and a field full of flowers that we didn’t recognise.
(I realise that the category “flowers that Steve doesn’t recognise” extends to almost all of the botanical universe; but Jane didn’t recognise them either, and that’s unusual). At first, Jane thought it was just a field overtaken by weeds. but it was clear there was systematic planting at work
so Jane consulted the internet to discover what this flower was,
and read that it was buckwheat – just before a sign showing that the internet isn’t all fake news.
The crop belonged, we think, to the farm we next encountered, which had an encouraging sign that maybe there was a punta ristoro we could rest at.

Don’t ask me why that aeroplane is there
And there was;
there, beside that dirty great truck.
I suppose we could have availed ourselves of it, but it wasn’t that attractive a prospect and we weren’t that desperate. So we moved on. We passed a possible resting point with some kind of reference to Pope Boniface on it,
an Agriturismo establishment at a place called Torricella
and the border marking the end of Tuscany.
Shortly thereafter, we came to Centeno, another place which the S-cape app inaccurately had told us that there was the possibility of a rest stop. Google Maps was of the opinion that there was a trattoria there, but it would be closed, because it was (a) Sunday and (b) after 2pm. And so it was.
From Centeno, for the next 5km or so, walking the Via simply means walking along a main road, which is unpleasant and potentially dangerous. Our arrangements involved phoning a pre-arranged number to be driven along that 5km stretch and dropped at Ponte Gregoriana so that we could complete the walk to Acquapendente. Since this involved an uphill pull, I was thinking “bollocks to that; let’s just get a lift to the town”. Fortunately, Jane was of the same opinion as me. Sitting in the shade by the trattoria and the town defibrillator, Jane made contact with Senora Morena del Segato and she said she would be along in 10 or 15 minutes. During those minutes, a couple of ladies came by looking dispirited. They were, like us, Brits walking the Via, and had set their hearts on that trattoria being open, and were really despondent that it wasn’t; plus one of them wasn’t feeling too well. It transpired that they were also headed to Acquapendente and so we invited them to join our lift; fortunately Morena was open to the idea and she whisked us off to the centre of the town. This means we’ve sort of cheated, in that we didn’t walk that final 4km or so up into Acquapendente. But you know what? I don’t care; deal with it.
Having cheated our way into central Acquapendente, our next game was to get into our accommodation, which was a B&B called “Il Teatro”. Jane found us the theatre OK
but getting into it was another thing. Fortunately, Jane had the contact details for the owners and they WhatsApped us directions so we could get in. Just inside the door, reassuringly, were our suitcases. All we then had to do was to manhandle them up three storeys to our room. Once Jane had sorted things out with the owners, it all worked rather well – a decent room with breakfast materials provided in the little kitchen (including Twining’s finest Earl Grey!) so we could construct something for ourselves in the morning.
It was nearing 3pm by this stage, and we both wanted some lunch; so, for once, eating took priority over hygiene and we set out in search of a restaurant in our walking gear. A central restaurant, Albergo Toscana, was still prepared to serve us lunch, so we took our seats near the bar whilst, in the neighbouring room, a raucous gathering of Italians was also embarking on their lunch.
We were a bit surprised, halfway through our lunch, when Morena turned up at the restaurant. She explained to us that the group were celebrating someone’s 80th birthday. I may be rude about Italians and their predilection for noisy conversation; but I have to hand it to them for the singing. When Brits sing “Happy Birthday” they inevitably start in the wrong key and miss the high notes; but the Italian crew were bang on in their rendition.
We had an agreeable meal – no gin available, but the beer was good – and then, to settle lunch down, we went for a walk. Obviously. Acquapendente isn’t a tourist town like San Gimignano; it’s largely just this place where people live and work; but there were one or two things worth exploring.
For a start, this is the first Italian town we’ve walked through where there is a decent amount of street art.
There’s a fine town hall
and some attractive corners.
The church of St. Antony and St Catherine
is obviously Confessional Central for the town; there were no fewer than four confessional booths in the church! It has some nice trompe l’oeuil work around its paintings, so it’s difficult to work out what is and isn’t marble, for instance (spoiler alert: none of it is)
and there is an intriguing dark-faced figure on one wall, which we think is a black madonna and child in the tradition of Madonna of Loreto.
There is a cathedral
with some very dramatic artwork on display (though we’re not, frankly, sure what each artwork represents).
Some, like this one, have been made from flower petals – very impressive work.
The final thing we went in search of was the Barbarossa Tower, a clock tower. This is (sigh!) above the town, so we toiled up streets and steps to find it.
At least, after doing all that climbing, we got a decent view over the town.
And so a day of tedious walking has, in fact, been rather interesting; our “cheating” meant we got a decent chance to wander around and appreciate Acquapendente.
We have a couple more walks to do before we get another rest day. I think my underwear supply will hold out until then. Tomorrow, we head to Bolsena, some 23km away. On paper, it doesn’t look too arduous a trek, but I’ve been wrong about that before now; but at least we are promised a rest stop about halfway along. Stay tuned to see how the day unfolded, won’t you?