Tag Archives: Tuscany

Day 9 – Buonconvento to San Quirico d’Orcia – a decent walk

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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.

Day 7 – Siena to Lucignano d’Arbia – more like the Camino

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Tuesday 20 May 2025 – And off we go again!  We set the alarm for 0530 in order to get a prompt breakfast at 0700, which was a bit of a shame, as the hotel breakfast service didn’t start until 0730. Never mind; we could usefully catch up with the woes of the world while we waited.

We walked through the streets of Siena, with their amusingly-modified tables on the steep bits,

to the Campo, where the swallows were feasting exuberantly.


It was clear that today was Bin Day in Siena.

We exited the city through the Roman Gate

and carried on along a tarmac road for some 6km, past scenery that was, as before, pleasant and rural but otherwise unremarkable.

Eventually, we left the tarmac for the “white road” (i.e. a dirt road) that would be the underfoot surface for much of the rest of the walk.

It took us through an industrial estate

and on to a section of sheltered path which led beside the road

to another industrial estate, though one of a different sort.

In the distance, we could see a Mystery Object

which the track would take us nearer, to give us a chance to understand what it was. We also passed evidence that a major road once passed overhead.

The second industrial estate was just outside a village called Isola d’Arbia, which offered two items of keen interest, given that we had by this stage walked over 10km – a “sosta del pellegrino” and a bar. The “sosta del pellegrino” looked uncannily like a coffee bar, so we stopped to intrude on the privacy of the barman for a swift coffee. We debated stopping at the second bar for another coffee but decided to soldier on. Generally speaking, the going was a lot less arduous than we had been used to in the first week – much less up and down. The temperature was fine – around 20°C – but it was quite humid, and indeed we had a small sprinkling of rain occasionally as we walked. The day felt more similar to those that we had experienced when we walked the Camino de Francés in Spain, only with fewer convenient bars and cafés.

We got really quite close to the Mystery Object

but close examination gave scant clues as to what it was beyond a bleedin’ great tower. We could make out the letters IDIT at the base, and the S-cape map, being on this occasion more useful than Google Maps, told us that it was a “Torre di Essicazione”, which only helped a little, but when I plugged that nugget and the letters IDIT into ChatGPT, we got not just some kind of general information, but a specific run-down of exactly what it was. I quote:

Constructed between 1959 and 1961, the tower was part of the IDIT (Industria di Disidratazione Isola Tressa) facility, designed to dehydrate fruits and vegetables—primarily tomatoes—using a German-engineered process. The method involved drying produce at 33°C within a 70-meter-high silo, aiming to transform fresh produce into shelf-stable powders. Despite the initial enthusiasm, the facility faced operational challenges and ceased production by 1966, having never reached full-scale operation.

Today, the tower stands as a prominent, albeit decaying, landmark in the Tuscan landscape. While the concrete structure remains intact, other parts of the facility have deteriorated significantly, leading to its designation as an “ecomostro” (eco-monster) by environmental and heritage organizations.

While the structure is not open to the public due to safety concerns, it remains a poignant symbol of a bygone industrial era amidst the rolling Tuscan hills.

It certainly dominated the landscape as we walked on.

The white road carried on rolling

In the distance, two Czech pellegrinos who were considerably younger and fitter than us

and we were a little worried that the few drops of rain we’d had might develop into something more sustained – the sky looked quite strange at times.

but any showers that were around didn’t affect us.

We saw a couple more Mystery Objects.

We guessed that the first one was some kind of water storage facility. From the number of man-made and natural ponds, we reckon that water supply for irrigation must be an issue at some times of the year, although right now the countryside was very green. And (I’ll be honest here) the second one wasn’t a mystery at all; it was the Grancia di Cuna, one of the best preserved medieval fortified farms in the Siena area, and clearly a construction of significant size.

The S-cape app suggested a path that deviated slightly from the official Via to take us close by it.

It’s very chunky indeed; of course, once you get really close you can no longer see it properly.

So I took the opportunity to whizz the drone up to see if an aerial shot looked good.

It was built in the 14th century as a collection centre for the grain and other agricultural production necessary for the hospital of Santa Maria della Scala in Siena. It developed into a small independent village surrounded by walls, gates and towers, with the farm-fortress at the centre. Like the tower, the Grancia dominates the landscape around it.

There was some lovely scenery, really typical of Tuscany, to be appreciated.

Our route took us up into the hills overlooking Monteroni d’Arbia

and past some curious artworks – these turn out to be part of the “Museum of Widespread Art” whose works adorn this Siena stretch of the Via Francigena.

We caught our first sight of our destination

but the app led us to it via a very winding route, through a tiny but tidy hamlet called Greppo

with what we guessed was a disused well of some sort outside it,

and then via quite a significant diversion through another industrial area, to the road leading to Lucignano d’Arbia. The Powers That Be of Monteroni (who run the commune of which Lucignano forms a part) had obviously tried to ease the path round a roundabout, to help pilgrims on their way, so we walked along it until

it rather suddenly ended.

With no escape route, we had to retrace our footsteps, which, after 22km, was a little irritating. But soon we arrived in Lucignano, which is a small fortified village;

like Monteriggioni, you can see quite easily pretty much from one end to the other. Unlike Monteriggion, though, it doesn’t have coffee or gelato bars; just the one hotel, the Borgo Antico, whose entrance we found after stumbling around a little bit.

A friendly receptionist checked us in to our room which was on the ground floor (hurrah!) and so we refreshed ourselves and, given there was a forecast for rain, went out for a look round Lucignano. This doesn’t take long. It’s pretty, and small.

Pieve (monastery) di San Giovanni Battista, from 11th or 12 century, used now just for masses

Fortifications at each end

There being just the one restaurant there (in the hotel), I was glad we were on half board. Dinner was taken in the vaulted dining room

and was very good. It was a little bit of a shame that they ran out of gin before I could have a second glass, but never mind. By the time we’d had dinner, the threatened thunderstorm had arrived, and so we retired for the night and to prepare for the morrow.

Tomorrow is a light day; we have to walk just 14km to Buonconvento and there’s a coffee stop on offer at Ponte d’Arbia, so we can both get a rest and take a look at the river which gives its name to so many places. Like today, I’m expecting the going to be relatively easy, but you’ll have to check back on these pages to see how things really went, won’t you?

 

 

Intermission (Impossible): Siena

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Monday 19 May 2025 – Warning! Long Post Alert! Really long!!

I have to try to sum up Siena as we’ve seen it for the last couple of days, which is pretty much an impossible task. Actually, for a tourist only here for two days (for that’s what we are, before going back to becoming travellers tomorrow), there are relatively few highlights to hit: the Duomo, of course; the Campo (the main square); some notable churches; and the general scenery. Once you actually visit any of these tick-box items, though, you are deluged with all sorts of astonishing images. I’ve taken literally hundreds of photos, and obviously can’t bore you with all of them. I’ll try to summarise.

Our hotel, the Chiusarelli, is in a decent location, a few minutes walk from the centre of the old city.  I’ve mentioned its eccentricities, which also extend to decor.

Our room, while not particularly large, is comfortable enough. Unlike most hotel rooms we’ve come across so far (and not, I may add, just in Italy), it has a sufficiency of charging points for the various devices we use – camera, phones, activity monitor, backup drive, tablet – and some of these are usb-c, which is outrageously modern and very welcome. The breakfasts

are ample and feature Twining’s finest Earl Grey, so it has been a happy base from which to ramble. We’ve had a guided tour with the somewhat theatrical Serena, and also been for our own walks. Obviously. Here, in no particular order, are some of the things we’ve learned and some of the things we’ve seen.

Siena is built upon three hills. The practical upshot of this for us tourists is that to get anywhere involves toiling up really quite steep slopes. But for the original medieval settlers, it had a more significant problem – lack of water. Being on the top of hills meant that, unlike its dreaded rival Florence, a river didn’t run through it. It took some significant medieval engineering to create a series of underground aqueducts, 25km in length, called bottini. These tapped into underground springs and rainwater run-off, and were Siena’s principal source of water until the 20th century. There’s a fountain in the Campo, the Fonte Gaia, built to express gratitude for the water. It’s not impressive, like the Trevi jobbie in Rome, there are just a couple of she-wolves dribbling water,

but it represents something terrifically important for the locals.

The Campo itself, yesterday, was not the unencumbered place whose photo I shared the other day, oh no. All over the centre of Siena, barricades were being set up

and equipment rolled out

in preparation for the arrival, yesterday afternoon, of the Giro d’Italia, the Italian equivalent of the Tour de France.  As the day progressed, crowds began to build up

and, at around 5pm the circus arrived, unwatched by me, since I was

making myself useful. Jane watched on TV as the cyclists made their way into town and round the Campo to the finish. Apparently it was quite exciting.

The Campo has been used for racing of quite a different sort – horse racing, believe it or not. Twice a year, the outer edge of the Campo is covered in sand and 10 horses are raced for three laps, a process that takes just over a minute. But it’s a terrifically important minute, and the running of these races continues a tradition started, in Siena at least, in 1633 (apparently, this kind of lunacy has been going on in various other places since the middle ages, would you believe). The race, and the parades and other pageantry that precede it, is called “Il Palio“. Is it popular with the locals? You bet! This is a photo I got from a pamphlet on the Palio, showing the Campo as the race is running.

Why is it so important to the locals? This comes down to the way the city is divided into “contrade” – neighbourhoods. There are 17 in total and each horse represents a “neigh”bourhood. Only ten horses run each time; in the next Palio, the seven neighbourhoods which didn’t participate get a place as of right, and the other three places are allocated by lot. Horses are allocated by a draw, and to be the winning jockey is very important for the inter-neighbourhood rivalries.

Each neighbourhood has its own flag on which is represented its animal. The choice of animal is non-intuitive. One might expect lions, or tigers, but what you get is the rhino, the owl, the silkworm, the snail and other unlikely candidates.  Every contrada has its own museum, church, fountain and baptismal font, and if you look carefully, you can see the badges of different contrade on either side of a boundary.

Eagle on the left, Forest (featuring a rhino!) on the right

The flags are sold everywhere for tourists to buy;

one can buy individual flags or one with all of the insignia on it.

If I understand it correctly, the distinction between neighbourhoods extends even to the way the street lamps are mounted, on “braceletti”

though it would appear that there are also special braceletti, too.

Siena was an important city in medieval Europe, and its historic centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which contains several buildings from the 13th and 14th centuries. The city is famous for its cuisine, art, museums, medieval cityscape and, of course, the Palio. According to local legend, Siena was founded by Senius and Aschius, two sons of Remus and thus nephews of Romulus, after whom Rome was named. Supposedly after their father’s murder by Romulus, they fled Rome, taking with them the statue of the she-wolf suckling the infants (Capitoline Wolf), thus appropriating that symbol for the town. You can see it all over the place; for example on the wall of the courtyard inside the Palazzo Pubblico, the town hall – the building with the tall tower (the Mangia Tower) on the Campo.

You can also see the she-wolf represented on the floor of the Duomo, so now that I’ve exhausted you with talk of history and such, let me show you some images from our tour of the cathedral. It took us a little time to work out how to get in, and in fact our guide, Serena, gave us the best info. We bought the inclusive ticket, for €16 apiece, which got us into the four main bits of this vast complex – the cathedral itself, the baptistry, an area called the crypt even though it isn’t one, and the “panorama”. Fixated as I am with aerial shots of places, we started with the panorama, which you can get to via (loads of bloody steps and) a beautiful arch.

This takes you into a courtyard of which one wall overlooks the Duomo from the eastern side.

This courtyard immediately made me think that it was once a church; in fact it was going to be a church, to expand the Duomo to be bigger than that thing the bastard Florentines have. It was never completed as the pillars you can see to left and right wouldn’t have been able to bear the weight of any roof. So now it’s a car park. But it’s a car park overlooked by a very tall wall, which one can climb; entry is via the museum, the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo.  An internal staircase and a couple of very narrow spiral staircases take you up to the lower

and then the upper level, officially called the Facciatone, from which vantage point the view of the Duomo is spectacular.

Because of the narrowness of the spiral staircases, the traffic up and down is closely monitored and carefully controlled; but, amazingly, we were virtually the only people there at the time we climbed it – it was more crowded later. You also get great views over the city and surrounding areas.

Coming down, you’re led through the museum, which has several museumish rooms with examples of embroidery

and paintings an’ that.

As you can tell, I’m not particularly moved by this kind of art. But awaiting me was a room with material in it which I did find engaging.

In the central display cases were books of ancient music – gregorian chants, written out on vellum and gloriously illuminated.

Around the walls were pictures on what appeared to be paper. We asked an attendant, who told us that they were drawings of the pictures made in marble on the floor of the Duomo. Indeed, there was one of the entire floor plan

with each marble picture carefully drawn.

Elsewhere, there were individual pictures of each of the tableaux.

This is a representation of the she-wolf, and it’s surrounded by the representations of other cities – Pisa, Lucca, Viterbo and so on. Remember this for later.

The way out takes you past a gallery of statues with a lovely representation of the rose window from the Duomo

and the exit is via the church of St. Nicholas,

which is also the gift shop – with possibly the ritziest gift shop ceiling on the planet.

Ritzy ceilings are a key feature in the baptistry, which is back through that arch and down a whole load of steps. Going inside made me catch my breath.

There are all sorts of beautiful details, but the fresco-painted ceilings are, for me, the most amazing aspect.

 

You’ll be unsurprised to learn that I have many more photos, but I hope these give you the basic idea. The bottom right-hand photo there is painted on the inside of a dome. Hold that thought….

Before going into the Duomo itself, we visited something inaccurately called the Crypt.  It’s not a crypt, it has no corpses in it. It was once a church, or perhaps the entry into the cathedral of the time, or maybe a meeting place – whatever, it was built on a level below the current Duomo, which was simply piled on top of it. No-one knew about this earlier space until in 1999 during renovations, workmen accidentally broke through a wall and found something painted blue. Careful research revealed this room, dating from the 1200s, whose walls were completely covered in frescoes which have been preserved by it being filled with debris in the 1300s, buried and forgotten. The interior was excavated – carefully, because of the not inconsierable bulk of the Duomo above, which necessitated special reinforcing to be put in place. And the result is a phenomenal display of frescoes telling biblical and Christian stories.

You can see the steel frame used to support the Duomo above,

and, on one wall,

lo! the outside of the dome of the baptistry. This has to be one of the most atmospheric places we have ever visited.

The final piece was, of course, a visit inside the Duomo itself.

This is the rose window reproduced in the statue gallery in the museum

 

As I said earlier, the floor is covered in tableaux made in marble. They are marblous!

and, of course, there’s the she-wolf.

There was nothing for it after all of this visual overload but to go for a Nice Lunch.  Heading back to the hotel afterwards for a Nice Lie-Down, we managed to do a key piece of shopping

which should stand us in good stead for the remainder of our walking.

Which restarts tomorrow.  We have some 21km to walk to Lucignano d’Arbia. We’ve had a fabulous time in Siena, and it’s been wonderful having the chance to draw breath and do the laundry – these things are important, y’know – but it will equally be nice to get underway again as we head to Rome. I hope you’ll accompany us through the medium of these pages.