Vetralla to Capranica 18.11.2010

18.11.10 Vetralla to Capranica

Forest path

You learn to expect the unexpected when you’re doing this sort of thing, but when you’ve finished reading today, tell me if it isn’t a pretty extreme example.

We set off in nice sunny and warm weather. There’s no breakfast at the B&B so we stop for a coffee and croissant in a little bar. One of the few times someone has tried to rip us off, the owner gives the wrong change. R holds his hand out and the guy just gives a shrug, opens the till and hands over the other 10 euro note. We narrow our eyes and give him a stare, that’s about all we can do. It’s hard to say “thieving mongrel” when you don’t know the words for “thieving” or “mongrel”.

But a few steps later we are on a pretty path and spend the rest of the day off road. Orchards of hazelnuts, chestnuts. A trail through the forest, slender trees with feathery yellow leaves.

It’s Saturday so the cyclists are out in force, and we come across a big group of children riding along the path with a couple of adults. Their little piping voices sound like a flock of birds. The autumn leaves are thick on the ground and they crunch and rustle as we walk. There are signs on the trees telling hunters what days they are permitted to go after wild boar.

We pass an old apple tree with apples covering the ground around it. We try one cautiously but it is crisp and delicious, so we put another one in our pocket for later. At lunchtime we stop in an orchard. We find a couple of old chairs near a hut. Mine is a sturdy little stool, but R’s has a cane seat which makes alarming little snapping sounds and finally gives way just as he stands up to leave.

We come to a village with only one person in sight, an old man leaning over to the ancient water fountain in the middle of the square filling up a pile of bottles.

All day it is pretty and peaceful. And very quiet. After a few hours we cross the Via Cassia, we have met this road a few times now. It’s heading straight for Rome, less than an hour away by car, but we just cross it and strike off again across the fields away from the sounds of civilisation.

We don’t know where we will stay in Capranica and it looks very dreary as we walk in. There are ugly, dilapidated modern flats for about a km. We look ahead to the old town but when we walk in through the arch our hearts sink. It is old, definitely. It is also shabby, crumbling, drab. We walk along the empty Sunday street looking for a B&B, a hotel. No signs, nothing that we can see. Lots of the buildings look vacant, shops empty and shut, and For Sale signs dotted around.

Capranica

We consult the list of possibilities with growing anxiety. Maybe tonight is the night we will finally have to sleep on a park bench. There is a convent somewhere, maybe we can find that and try our luck. We glance up, we are standing next to a sign with an arrow to the convent’s address! “Maybe it’s a sign”, I say. Yes, it’s definitely a sign, screwed to the wall.

We follow the sign, up a flight of stairs and knock on a door. It opens, there is an elegant white-haired woman on the phone. Slim, dressed simply in black skirt and top. Classy nun! Very different to the general run of dumpy, pudding-faced sisters we see traipsing around cathedrals all over Italy. “Oh,” she says to the person she is speaking to on the phone, “there are two pilgrims at the door.” She hangs up, ushers us in. We explain we are looking for somewhere to stay. Does she have a room, or is there a B&B or a hotel in town?

She hesitates, then asks us for how many nights. “One.” She leads us upstairs and then we enter a little Kafka moment. It is not a convent, it is her home, her bedroom. She explains that we can stay there. I suppose that she is going to sleep downstairs.

She strips the bed and she and I make it together with clean sheets, chatting in Fritalian, a unique blend of French and Italian (sounds like a brand of potato crisps, really, doesn’t it). Her jumper is on the chair, her personal photos on the bedside table, her dressing gown behind the bathroom door, even her knickers drying on the rail.

R offers her 50 euros, but she refuses firmly, so that seems to clarify that it is not in fact a B&B. Despite it being so unlikely we gradually become convinced that she is indeed offering to let us stay there while she is away for the night. She is going to Rome, taking her old dog with her and will be back tomorrow. She shows us the cupboard with the tea and biscuits for breakfast, gives us the key, tells us to leave it in the letterbox when we leave. We go out for a walk.

When we return , she and the dog have gone and we in possession of her house and all her things. We tentatively make ourselves at home, hoping we haven’t made some sort of mistake. The house is very pretty, full of artwork. It is a little bit bohemian, a little bit herbal tea. “Are you an artist?” I had asked her. “No, but my late husband was a great artist.” Not sure if that means successful , the house isn’t a palace, but it is interesting, artistic, individual. There are pictures stacked against the walls here and there, all modern art. A couple of his paintings are on the wall, one of them looks vaguely familiar. Matteo Guasco, must look him up, I think. We put a cd on, make some tea. R catches me looking longingly at the fireplace with the basket of wood. “Forget it,” he says, “we won’t be lighting a fire.” He’s right , of course, accidentally burning the place down would be a bit embarrassing.

We go out to check out our exact route out of town for tomorrow, as usual. The town is transformed, fascinating. Tourism has passed Capranica by and its untouched buildings, arches, stairways, alleys, softly highlighted by pools of golden light from wrought iron streetlamps, could truly have been 500 years ago. One old man with a limp hobbles slowly down the road, a young couple hang over a rail. Otherwise it is deserted. It is fantastically atmospheric.



We walk back stopping to peer into shadowed courtyards until we reach the restaurant where we had planned to have dinner. Disaster, it is closed! We hunt for another, it is locked tight. We walk into the bar opposite to ask and the barman points to the man standing beside us. He beckons for us to follow and leads us….into the place we had intended to eat. He is the owner, just opening up a bit late.

He sits us down, the Signora starts to cook. Their young son is doing his homework. The young couple come in and take another table, the Signor’s daughter and a bunch of her friends arrive, noisily settling at a big table. The boy comes over, and shyly practices his English. “My name is Giacomo. I am twelve years old. What is your favourite team?” Lovely!

We take a little wander up the lane as we go back to the house and realise our mistake. The signs to the convent actually lead to the end of the alley where it opens into a tiny piazza with the convent tucked in just out of sight. But we go to sleep for the night alone in the house of a complete stranger. Amazing!

Viterbo to Vetralla 13.11.2010

Viterbo to Vetralla 13.11.10

100km to go!

Pope's palace at Viterbo



Better people would laugh this off says R . By then it's OK really. We're sitting in Vetralla, were out of the rain, we're eating pizze, we have somewhere to stay. At several points during the day none of these seemed likely.

Viterbo was OK, the usual tangle of old buildings, but laid out gracefully becauseit was the Pope's base at one time when the Papacy lost control of Rome. The palace in Fiasco hadbeen his summer residence high on a hill 20km away.

But Viterbo has a cathedral, what seems like dozens of churches and a grand palace all dominating the town. The pope who built it must have been jigging the day of the lesson in the seminary about vows of poverty.

We walk out, take a couple of photos and hey presto, under the arch and across the road we are in a country lane. So far so good. Very pretty, very quiet, except for the Saturday trail bike and push bike riders decked out in dashing gear and calling out cheery greetings as they fly past.

The trail is nice, the weather is lovely. The Via wanders beside olive groves and ancient moss covered walls. Then, what the...it stops. The farmer has ploughed everything within view. We stagger across the ploughed ground, those big clods of earth threatening to turn an ankle at every step. If there is a hell says R I hope that *** farmer goes to it.

It's very hard to pick the trail when there is no trail. Then we stumble on an Etruscan tomb, aha, that's mentioned in the guide and we are back on the page. I don't begrudge them making a litle glass hut over that tomb and locking it up, but instead of using old fashioned opaque wired glass, maybe it could have been clear? So we could see what's inside? Would that have been too hard? We're climbing up the next hill when R taps a piece of broken tile sticking out of the ground near his foot. Etruscan relic he says. It is indeed very old, a piece of history, bathroom reno circa 1970.

A tiresome day follows. We get lost several times. We spend along time wandering through an enormous farm of olives and kiwi fruit with junk lying everywhere trying to find our way. I catch my foot in blackberry bush and yank it out with a howl just in time to save myself from falling head first down a steep slope full of brambles. Finally after going around in circles we find the farmer's wife and she givs us vague direction.

Part of the day was ona path beside the motorway, rubbish-strewn and noisy. Part of it was on a country path stinking of piggery run off, witha Chinook helicopter hovering overhead.

We stop for a break, feelng exhausted and dismayed. After a bit we realise we are actually lying in an olive grove, eating bread and cheese, drinking local red wine, dozin in the sun o a hot dry day. Hmm. Not too bad actually. Pretty good, really.

We walk up a long hill into Vetralla, missingal the pretty bits, if there are any, just ugly blocks of flats. The town is bigger than we expect and it is hard to see where the centre might be. A man walks across the road and I ask him for directions. Across the main road and up the other side we find the piazz, but it's a daggy place. Where to stay? We have discovered that where we had intended to spend the night is 4 km further on and in the wrong direction, that won't do.

There is a B and B just here but we can't raise the owner by phone. We sit on a stone step and consider our options. We ask some teenagers. Hotel? No. Taxi? No. We ask in the haberdashery shop next door, where can we stay? La Signora, bless her, springs into action and goes to all sorts of trouble to locate the B&B owner. Success! In one minute they will be here!

One Italian minute, that is. We setle back on our step. After a while a car pulls up and out gets..the man we had asked directions of an hour ago. We all exclaim about the coincidenta. We have a room, we are sitting across the road in a little pizzeria devouring a family size pizze each. Tomorrow is another day. Five walking days to Rome. We passed the 100km mark today, it felt very significant after coming so far. Zoe said, It's just a long last 5, of a half marathon, a marathon, a pilgrimage. Five to go to reach our destination.

Siena to Buonconvento

Siena

At last, I’ve heard someone say “Mumma Mia!” Not in a cartoon, or a musical, but just say it like…for real.

We are standing at the tourist office in Siena, and the very helpful man has made yet another phone call to try to find us somewhere to stay, but “Mumma Mia” there’s no room at the inn.

We walked into Siena deciding that we would lash out a bit, but if we were going to grace a place with our presence it had to come up to our full wishlist: can walk around the bed, good water pressure, really hot water, can turn around in the shower recess, wool blankets, soft pillows, in the centre of the old town, access to a computer.

We had briskly rejected the first room we were shown as we walked into town, a tiny stinking room with filthy carpet. Then there was no availability at all at the next two hotels we checked out so, puzzled, we headed to the Tourist Information Office.

Aha, it is Halloween tomorrow night and a big public holiday on Monday, All Saints Day. Like Thanksgiving, and Chinese New Year, this is the big one here, and all Italy is on the move. November 1 is the day everyone visits the family graves in the cemetery, so they all go home, or if not, they have a long weekend away.

Siena is packed, but not with tourists. It’s Italians wall to wall and the atmosphere is great. The problem is, all the hotels are full. After the helpful man has rung five with no luck, our wishlist has shrunk to, “Does it have a roof?”.

We are offered the last room in a place just a few steps outside the mediaeval town wall. We sigh, head there prepared to be stoical and undemanding and…step into a little charmer.  We’re thrilled, a hotel with so much character, pretty, individual,  and our room even has a mezzanine. We can’t believe our luck. It reminds us of one of our most favourite places in Spain, Costa Vella, a little family run hotel in Santiago de Compostella.

It has hot showers, wool blankets, oh, who cares about the rest of the list. We explore the place, there is a gravelled garden out the back, an ancient well with a pot of herbs and a terracotta cherub perched on top, a view out to the hills.  R says he’d like to stay forever.

Now here’s the thing about Siena. It is without a doubt one of the prettiest towns in the world, the mediaeval walled part, that is, which is an absolute masterpiece.

Like some other places we’ve seen, it has been preserved because of circumstances that would have been rather unfortunate at the time. The plague hit it and killed half the population, which stopped progress in its tracks, and then , no I won ‘t spoil it…

We walk up the flagged street and in through the huge gate with the big (guess whose) crest on it. Yep it’s those Medicis again.  Now this is puzzling because Siena and Florence were enemies, so why is there a Medici crest here? Because they won, that’s why, and annexed Siena, and whacked their crest all over it. Of course, you can understand it, if you were called, let’s say, Lorenzo the Magnificent, you’d think a few crests were de rigeur.  When it was taken over by Florence it was at first intentionally suppressed. Then the Medicis (during their 300 years of rule) got into their building, arts, sciences, painting, sculpture kick here, just as they did everywhere they were in control.  So it was more and more beautified during that time.

There are lovely buildings everywhere, but what makes you gasp and stare is the Campo, the huge shell-shaped piazza, with the palazzo and the tower, famous from every book on Italy. It’s the pearl, it’s one of the postcard memories I have of Italy from all those years ago. It is just stunning.

It’s getting dark, we sit at a restaurant with a clear view of the circle of graceful, elegant buildings and just drink it in. Finally we wander home, eating a gelato.

It buckets down with rain during the night. The next stage is 30 km, we can’t see how we can break it, and it is a daunting thought to contemplate walking in torrential rain for a very long hard day. So we make a snap decision to stay here for another day, let the weather have a chance to settle, and just enjoy Siena.

We do a few tourist things:

• Check out the museum, recognizing some of my new friends from The Lives of the Artists
• Climb the tower to look at the amazing view, after waiting in a queue for 45 minutes.
• Visit the cathedral with   a) an altar by Michelangelo    b) an altar painting by Bellini   c) a library of a local boy who became pope   d) a stained glass window by the stained glass guy Buoninsegna and 5 Sibyllas in tiles in the floors  e)coloured tiled pictures in the floors by Niccola Pisano  f)a façade by Niccolo’s son Giovanni
• Visit the crypt with frescoes only discovered in 2001

We think we now have had enough culture for one day, it’s still raining and we are hungry. So home, a bite of lunch, and the perfect way to spend a wet afternoon, a siesta.

When it’s Italian time to out to dinner we wander up the street, thronged with children in witches hats and masks and sit down to eat in a little trattoria in a back street. After scanning the menu we pass on the Warm Spleen Sauce, the Toasted Bread and Lard, the Sienese Tripe, even the Pieces of Stewed Wild Boar. We opt for spaghetti and soup. But R just can’t resist the Cooked Whipped Cream with Fruits of Wood for dessert.

Siena to Lucignano D'Arbia 1 November

If you're going to lay some paving, or a stone floor, and you want it to last, say about 800 years, you'd want to do it once and do it right. The Campo is in 9 sections and they've been having the famous horse races there for that long, as well as hordes of people tramping over it for centuries and it looks pretty damn intact. And a floor I saw today in a palazzo simply stopped me in my tracks, so to speak. Smooth, shiny, still perfect after all this time. La la la, I reckon Simon and Garfunkel could do something with that.

We trot around Siena all morning, filling up with culture despite the weather until, coming out of a museum into the Campo and seeing the rain coming down in sheets we decide that we have done everything in Siena that needs to be done and we retreat back into our warm dry hotel.

The Museo Civico had been a treat, though. There were two frescoes so different from anything we have seen. Both were painted in about 1330. One shows a horseman between a couple of castles, but what's special about it is that it is the first ever painting of a naturalistic landscape. I think it's worth about 5 out of 10 on the naturalistic scale but I guess he gets extra marks for thinking up the idea.

Then in the next room, on two walls facing each other, something else never done before. I wonder what the thought process for that is? You're lying in the bath watching your rubber duckie float around and suddenly you get a flash of inspiration..."How about I don't paint another Annunciation pic, sooo bored with them, how about I try something new, could I get away with it? What the hell ('scuse me) I'll do it."

It wasn't quite like that actually (rubber duckies hadn't been invented yet, baths either, really). There were 9 councillors in Siena (and because of that the Campo is set out in 9 sections) and they decided to break the mold. They asked for a pair of paintings  representing the effects of good government and the effects of bad government (to reflect what on them, I wonder...).

But the painting on good government shows, for the first time ever, a secular scene, with people dancing, buying shoes, farming, leading loaded donkeys, building houses. And (I loved this) it shows the exact spot on which our little hotel now stands, just outside the city gate and leading down the hill.

The city with the bad government has met a bad end, and with a lot of the fresco falling off the wall, serves it right, just a few creatures with horns and people in dire straits to make its point.

I think that's enough culture, don't you? Tomorrow we'll stir our lazy backsides and hit the road again, but (sigh) it really does look like this wet weather is setting in. R treats himself to a cigar and we stand in the garden looking at the lights.

Siena to Lucignana d'Arbia 2 November

"Too Pollyanna", says R, reading the instalment I had written yesterday during dinner, "All good news, nothing bad". So I say, "But all the interesting stuff is awful while it's happening, but I'll work in some tired feet or something." Now, I reckon a conversation like that is just asking for it, don't you?

The morning starts well, a bit overcast, but not raining, and as we walk out the sky clears and blue starts to spread all over, with little puffy picturebook clouds. We walked into Siena (who does that?) and we walk out again. Exit through the bookshop. Our hotel is on the Via Roma and just through the Porta Romana, so we reckon we are definitely on the right track. But the Via sign is right beside our hotel and it leads us away from the busy road and straight into countryside. All those rolling hills, dotted with farmhouses and hardly any traffic. It gets quieter and quieter. (In the distance there is a freeway cutting across the landscape and R takes a photo, just to remind us that it's not all picture perfect all the time.) Actually the Frenchman Alain was fascinated by the factories. I always tip my hat down to avoid looking at them when we have to pass one, but, "I am a man from manufacturing", he says and loves to look at them.

He did pose a very interesting question, though. Why are the Medici towers square? It is cheaper to make a round tower of the same height and strength, so why did they choose to make them square. Flaunting their wealth and power, or some other reason? Note to self, ask Andreas, he'll be sure to know.

We walk and walk, it's going to be a long day, even though we have found a place to stay to break the stage. There is a bit of confusion with some of the waymarkers. Actually, it's pretty funny, apparently there is quite a bit of politics and feeling between the two main Italian Via groups, and one of the results is that there are either two waymarkers or none. Like, if yours is up, we have to make our mark too. It's not very saintly! But I guess the history is there, Siena and Florence were at each others' throats for centuries, while at the same time spending a fortune on churches and religious art. The Guelphs and the Ghibellines, Siena backed one, Florence backed the other, the Pope was involved too and they spent hundreds of years, fighting, besieging, plundering. I can't remember which one backed which, and, strangely, those names sound more Dutch than Italian to me. But I digress...

We sit beside the road in the sun, the ground is wet and everything is steaming in the sunshine and have our first little picnic of the day. The countryside is lovely, golden autumn trees everywhere. It looks rather like lots of the folds in the hills around Bathurst in Autumn.  

But somehow we miss a turn, and we don't realise it for a long time, although we are looking at the map and at the gps quizzically from time to time like a pig looking at an armchair. It is becoming clear that all is not well, but the road is a nice quiet backcountry road, hardly any traffic, rising and falling enough to be interesting and very pretty all around. We are sort of heading in the right direction, so we assume that we will meet up with the route sooner or later as it emerges from a track. But we gradually get more and more pessimistic, and the sky is getting darker all the time, with definite signs of rain in the distance and occasional warning shots onto us.

When we reach Radi we have to accept that we have stuffed up. We are several km away from where we want to be, it doesn't sound like much but after walking 20km or so already it is, "Oh darn it" or words to that effect. We are lost, not lost like someone will find our bleached bones one day, but lost like, how to find our way back to where we want to go without walking half the night. So we stop for another little picnic and then change direction, onto a busier road, deciding to see if we can hitch a ride. The first couple of cars whizz by, and R says ,"We might as well accept that we will have to walk it." Around a corner, another car approaches, it's far too dangerous to stop there, no-one would, but, after all, this is Italy, who knows. I stick my thumb up, the car screeches to a halt, perched in the middle of the road, in the middle of a tight corner. We bundle in, the driver is a Professor of Medicine at the University in Siena, he is going near where we want to go.

Up the little hill and into our hotel.

Lucignano d’Arbia to Buonconvento 3 November

It rains a little bit on and off all night, the day dawns bright and blue sky, but the damage is already done.

We set off, perfect weather, hot even, and lovely scenery. The road leads out of pretty little Lucignano d’Arbia and after a brief tricky passage on the wrong side of the Armco, suspended on the steep side of a field, but out of reach of the trucks thundering by in both directions, we find our way down a little path and into the quiet of the countryside.

The track might be fine in summer, baked hard, but with last night’s rain it is slick and slippery. On one side a ploughed field, on the other a railway line. We skate and slide, then as the track gets lower and the grey clay gets wetter, we struggle along, our boots gathering mud until they are covered with a thick clog of mud.

I look at the field, and try it. No, that’s a mistake, I sink even deeper into that soft wet earth, back to the path which stretches out far ahead. “It’s going to be a long 2 kilometres,” says R.

Maybe we will be stranded like a hippopotamus in an African drought, up to our knees in mud and not able to take a step. I’m laughing to myself, thinking of a helicopter sent to rescue us, lifting us up. Our boots pull out of the mud with a sucking sound. The pilot says, “No way, they’re not getting into my helicopter with those boots.”  So we hang on the cables until we are deposited in a carwash and we get the pressure hoses onto it.

I look thoughtfully at the railway line. It looks rusty and disused but I don’t dare try it. For a while I amuse myself imagining walking along the tracks, a train comes suddenly, I don’t have time to get off, I’m knocked over, my feet are cut off, at least I’m free of these boots, but I bleed to death there. It’s very entertaining.  Suddenly a train comes flying past as I watch, startled.

After dragging myself along for an eternity, the track rises a little, there’s a shard of rock and a tuft of grass to step on, then it dries out enough to make it possible to walk, or trudge rather, dragging the weight of my boots along.

After about an hour the track rises, there’s gravel, a little bridge over the railway line. I find the perfect boot scraper, one of life’s little pleasures, a bit of broken pot with a long side and a pointy end. I haven’t seen R for a while and I watch him come into sight.

When he reaches the rise, he says, “Wow, that was tough. I ended up walking on the railway line. It was going well until the train came along.” I check him for missing feet and blood. Neither, all seems in order.

We stop for a little snack and then walk on to the next village. There are sheep all through these parts (that’s rural speak, did you like it?). They are picturesque of course, but the interesting thing is that the flocks all seem to be in the sole care of sheepdogs. They are large white dogs who blend in perfectly and suddenly detach themselves to bark at us enthusiastically as we go by.

Now we have noticed something all along the way in Italy. No-one disciplines their dogs. They bark, no-one takes any notice. They hurl themselves at the fence, there’s never a shout of, “Settle down”. And yesterday one that was not on a chain or behind a fence actually went for us, fangs flashing, with its owner watching impassively, showing mild amusement. R beat it back with his trekking pole and it retreated. They do seem to understand a stick. After joking with each other about catapults we have actually seen them for sale once or twice, so tempting.

Now, another mystery. When does all the building get done?  Everywhere there is scaffolding, and signs of activity, but the only time you see any actual work on these sites is early in the morning, when occasionally you can spot someone throwing a rope up. Then…nothing. Of course, you have to have siesta, mate. And after that it’s hardly worth starting, it’ll get dark too soon. Or it’s Saturday afternoon, or Sunday, or it’s wet, or hot, or… In a country full of fabulous and magnificent buildings, how on earth did they get built?

We arrive in Buonconvento early in the afternoon, take a stroll, looking at the so familiar town walls and gates with the Medici style. Buonconvento had the dual good luck in times gone by to be at the confluence of two rivers and on the route of the Via, so it prospered, but this also made it vulnerable to attack, hence the walls, which still seem to contain most of the town. It’s easy to imagine it in times gone by.

I’m immensely diverted by the fact that the hotel tonight is the Hotel Ghibellino. So easily amused. I check with the receptionist. Were the Ghibellines with Siena or Florence? She is visibly shocked…Siena, Signora!

Bolsena to Viterbo

Lake Bolsena

10.11.2010 Bolsena

“That was surreal, “ says R, leaning out of the window. It has been three days straight out of the 1950s. We have pretty much had the Hotel Royal to ourselves – one night there were two other people there, the other two nights there was one other couple, in the huge old-fashioned resort hotel.

I have rested my foot by lounging around in the salon, reading. It is a real period piece. There are lamps and side tables and persian rugs. There is a soundtrack playing softly all the time, sort of Perry Como favourites, with a little bit of Elvis and Frank Sinatra. And, most hilarious of all, some books in English, just a few: a couple of thrillers, some vicarage romances with heroines named Joyce and Sheila and (I'm honestly not making this up) a Nevil Shute hardback novel.

It could be a film set. If Viven Leigh was to jump out of a vintage sports car and come running in, bumping into Marcello Mastroianni in the foyer, it just wouldn't have surprised me. It would come out in a few months called “Italian Escapade”.

It was all very restful, and rather like having a mansion and staff. Buon Giorno Signora. Full breakfast buffet laid out just for madam and sir. Coffee in the salon? Is there anything else you would like? The weather was perfect for my purposes, wild squalls of rain, lashing wind. Great weather to be on the couch. R went out one day to do some sightseeing, and came back drenched to the skin and very miserable, but I just stayed put, going to look out the window every now and again at the wild scenes on the lake.

We ventured out to dinner one night. Ah Tuscany, hillsides bathed in sunlight. Lazy afternoons eating pears and persimmons warm from the tree. We laugh about the picture as we scuttle back in the icy driving rain, through deserted streets and past shops shut and shuttered for the winter.

But after having lazed around, slept, stared out the window for long periods and read two books, I have given my foot every chance to get better and it is time to get going.

11.11.2010 Bolsena to Montefiascone

Any place that has fiasco as part of its name has my attention.

We follow the lake around, and over a few hills. It is very pretty. The lake has two private islands in it which catch the eye, and the hills all around are wreathed in mist. People have been interested in what we are doing all the way along this journey, but now they say “Give my regards to Il Papa.” We don't expect to be sent an invite to meet him, actually, but we say Si Si just the same.

It's a lovely walk most of the way, until we reach the outskirts of Fiasco as we have taken to calling it.The streets leading into the town are standard issue ugly, nasty blocks of flats, rubbish- strewn vacant blocks, traffic.We trudge up the hill (they sure did love putting these towns on hills)and find our little hotel just outside the city gate.

When we go to have a look around, it is getting very cold, the streets are empty. Fiasco has not had the tourist trade and the loving care that lots of other places have. Its claim to fame is its huge dome on the big church at the top of the hill – second in size only to the dome of St Peter's in Rome, so they say. But the town is all very run-down, grey , grim and quiet. Where are all the people? Sitting in front of the heater, I guess, smart move.

We go to dinner in the only place we can find that is open, it is quite nice, with cheerful murals on the wall, but we are the only people eating. We scuttle back to our hotel and spend the evening moving our socks around on heaters up and down the hall outside out room as they go on and off, to get them dry.

Bella Italia. Well, it is, but not tonight.

12.11.2010 Montefiascone to Viterbo.

Looking back to Montefiascone

We can see Viterbo from our hotel window, across a wide plain, a big town, which is likely to have a lot of traffic and a busy entry.

The farmland is flat, we are just walking across the valley floor to get to Viterbo, and it is scruffy, daggy farmland. The lush rolling hills of Tuscany seem to have fallen away, and it is just Hoxton Park as far as the eye can see. Not quite, actually in the distance there are hills, and pretty soon we will be able to see the hills of Rome, it is getting very close now.

But for now we just have to get through this dreary market garden coutnryside. We do come across one surprising thing – some thermal ponds, steaming hot and smelling of sulphur, just out in some fields. They have been concreted into ugly little pools with broken orange piping.

There is a ring of campervans circling them, with terry robes hanging from the trees around about. Lolling about in the pools is a pod of whales, sorry, large Italian ladies and men of retirement age. I take off my boots and sit with my feet in one of the pools. Nowhere to change into swimmers so more than that was impossible. In fact, no facilities at all, just these ugly tacky little pools as if someone had made a set of amateur concrete fishponds in their backyard and never really got around to finishing them, let alone landscaping around them.

All that is left of the day is to get to Viterbo. The route is across country, so we don't strike traffic until we are almost in the town, the first sign is a massive cemetery, then a few blocks of dreary offices and shops, then through the mediaeval gate and into a spacious old town. This was the base for the Pope for a long time, when the papacy lost control of Rome, so there is a fine set of grand buildings right at the top of the hill and parks, piazzas with fountains, lots of churches and very graceful towers.

Mud Path

Buonconvento to Bolsena

Buonconvento to San Quirico d'Orcia 4 November

Get Van Gogh on the line! Or Monet, or Seurat. Or any of the Impressionists really, whoever you can get hold of. There's some scenery that really needs them!  If there are rolling hills with lines of golden grapevines and little farmhouses and pine trees and .... who you gonna call? It needs paint. Words just aren't enough, Have I mentioned the scenery before?

We start this day in mist, walking out of Buonconvento and up into the hills. It was truly beautiful, with sheets of mist blowing across the hills, covering the trees and then flowing on. Spiderwebs everywhere, glistening in the sun. 

Nothing's perfect, of course, and we are mildly concerned that this seems to be the morning when all the blokes decide to go hunting en masse. We've come across lots of hunters, but today they are out in force, looming out of the mist, blasting away, rather close by the . What concerns us is that if they are shrouded in mist so are we. We plug on, hoping for the best.

Apart from the hunters, we haven’t seen much that is dangerous along the way and the snake I see now isn’t dangerous either, because it is dead! But it is lying out into the path, long and yellow. I’m walking past its head when I spot it and shy away violently like a cartoon character.

Montalcino is a town everyone talks about around here, but for us it is the town we circle around all day. It is high above us with the usual set of walls, church tower and castle but far away. We see it from every angle and gradually, climbing, start to look down on it but it is still far away.

We had been invited to go to a famous abbey, San Antimo, on All Saints Eve to hear Gregorian chant but it was still 5 days walk away in Mediaeval walking time, so we had to give that a miss, although we can see the spire outlined against the sky.

There’s a wild boar somewhere around here, he’s been trotting along the track ahead of us, leaving clear footprints. I don’t like the thought of it at all but R says they are herbivores. A likely story, how can anything looking like that eat just plants?

We trudge up a long hill into San Quiroco d’Orcia hunting for the place we are to stay in. The town is asleep and the tourist office is closed (of course!) but we knock on the door of an office in the council chambers where there is a woman working at a computer and she tells us it’s just behind the building. In the old town? At 80 euros? Must be pretty crumby. My heart sinks. But what’s this? A great looking hotel, plastered with Michelin guide stickers and framed awards from the

The receptionist gets the key, walks us down the street and into a house and up the stairs.(R says, “It’s funny how you can climb all day up hills with a pack, but when faced with a flight of stairs, it’s so daunting”) and into a charming room. It’s overflow accommodation, cheap because it’s away from the hotel and cheaper still since we are pilgrims. 80 Euros for a room that is normally 120 and in the hotel itself the cost ranges from 140 to 200 plus. We’re so happy! There are 5 star toiletries in the bathroom 5 star hot water, and we get the high tea and fabulous breakfast of the in house hotel guests forking out big bikkies just a few steps up the road.

San Q is a very pretty little town, neat, antique, all it’s cobblestones just so. There are teenage boys playing soccer, kicking the ball into the mediaeval town wall. “They’ve taken worse than that,” says R, as another ball whacks into the stonework.

We have a simple dinner in a restaurant where they charge us twice for my bowl of soup. “Oldest trick in the book,” says R, and in a tourist town who would pick it up. I’m beginning to work myself into a state of righteous indignation but “give them the benefit of the doubt” says R and we settle for a refund.

Next day the guidebook says strenuous, and it is, although we are in good shape now and can keep going up long ascents. But it is relentless, climbing and descending, then a long climb again. We end up looking down at a lot of hill towns from a great height. There are castles and towns everywhere, dotting the landscape, every big hill has an ancient settlement on it or a lone tower.

We are very remote here, not a village, hardly a farmhouse, it’s so quiet. Occasionally a car goes past, accentuating the stillness as it disappears behind a hill. There is the faint sound of a tractor we can see in the far distance.

We stop for lunch near an old farm building. R finds a couple of old plastic chairs. Mine has a broken back, R’s has 3 legs. We prop them against a wall and sit down cautiously but they stay up. Eyes closed, warm sun, a light breeze, we munch our bread rolls with cheese and prosciutto.

After a few more kms along a gravel road, the path leads down between 2 fields. Unfortunately the farmer has ploughed the path as well as the field, the soft damp clay is almost impassable. We struggle along it, R cursing. He turns “Write about this damned farmer. He decided that he didn’t want the Via coming through here.” Those weren’t his exact words, they were a bit more colourful…

We know that we have a problem with where to stay tonight. Our only lead along the way is a marker point: agriturismo on the left. Now agriturismos are farmstays, accredited places, usually looking very spic ‘n span and attractive, so we are hopeful that we might be able to stay there. Otherwise, hmm, another 15 km would be a real problem.

We see the agriturismo, it looks lovely. The signor phones his wife. Yes! She arrives a few minutes later and leads us into a whole house. Pretty in a rustic way and arranges to cook us dinner. After zipping around with a broom getting rid of a few cobwebs and saying gaily, “it’s the country side. It’s normal”.

We can’t believe our good luck. It’s everyone’s picture of a holiday in Tuscany. The only snag is it gets colder and colder, and we put on all the clothes we have. She arrives later, we beg for heating, she laughs at us all rugged up but switches it on, then sets to making spaghetti with fresh tomato and basil sauce, tomato bruschetta and local farm wine, no label and a cork stuck in the top. She’s very proud of the tomatoes, the pasta, the wine “not like the ones you get at the supermarket” she says, wrinkling her nose with the contempt of shop-bought tomatoes. And they are an extraordinary colour, fluoro red and filling the room with the aroma of a warm summer afternoon.

She holds out the jar with the homemade tomato sauce in it for us to smell. We exclaim appreciatively.

When she piles the food on the table for us she sits down and we chat and share the wine while she urges us to et more, more.

Our little house is now warm, we’re well fed and the signora will be back in the morning to make breakfast and send us off with some lunch. And another bottle of that special wine.

It’s very dark here away from the town, there are lots of stars and each of the hill settlements is a little patch of twinkling light. Early today we walked for hours towards Rocco, a castle perched high on the horizon, then up to it, around it and away from it. Now it’s perched at eye level in the distance, the tower lit and a cluster of houses at its feet.

Everything is good except for one rather crucial thing. My right foot id very sore. The heel feels bruised and I’m quite worried that I may not be able to do the last couple of hundred kilometres to walk into Rome.

 

Agrotourismo to Radicofarni 6 November

Thought for the day: we are sitting at a table in the morning eating and R says, “It’s funny how different cultures have different breakfasts.” Profound! The impetus for this groundbreaking thought is that the signora is sitting at the table with us proudly explaining that she has made the breakfast food with her own hands, this morning, “Fresca! Fresca!” She rubs her fingers together and holds her hand out. She deserves to fell proud – what she has made for us are two memorable tarts, apple and berry, with soft, sweet buttery pastry, light and crumbly, just holding together. With coffee of course  - the signora wafts the aroma with her hand. It makes our usual muesli at home seem rather, mmm, I would have said anglo saxon, of course it’s not, but it’s certainly not this sensuous self indulgence.

And all the time the signora is calling me cara cairissma. I’m not absolutely sure what it means, but it’s definitely a term of endearment and it’s lovely.

After a round of kisses we head off down the hill across a series of streams, hopping from rock to rock. We climb 700 metres in altitude today, long steady climbs on back roads, quiet and remote. There is a town on top of every hill as far as the eye can see and one oddly shaped peak with a tall tower in the far distance high above.

We see it all day from far away. To our astonishment, that’s our final destination. We climb and climb until we are looking down on everything but that tower and we are in Radicofarni. It’s so high that all the surrounding countryside looks like a topographical map.

Our hotel is…well. In a country with stunning, heartbreakingly beautiful buildings, the modern age has produced some stuff that is truly pug ugly. I can imagine Michelangelo rising from the grave and pointing a bony finger at the person who designed the hotel La Torre in Radicofani.

We go to dinner in the only restaurant we can find, attached to our hotel. We are only two in the dining room when we arrive, but then about 60 middle aged people walk in and sit down at 2 tables and the place is full.

This is back country. The men sit stolidly, eating and drinking without saying a word. The women, mostly wearing various shades of purple and mauve, are talking like a tree full of birds. The television is on of course, with a quiz show, as usual. We debate trying to have it turned off, then decide not to bother, and to our surprise a news bulletin comes on showing the pope at the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. We nudge each other in excitement and point at the screen, remembering walking in 3 years ago after our previous long pilgrim adventure.

We finish our meal and leave. Every head in the room swivels to stare unblinking as we go, like a herd of cows as you walk by a field.

What did I like about Radicofarni? Just one thing, A statue by Andrea de la Robbia in each of the churches. I’d read about theses glazed clay statues that made this family rich and famous in my Lives of the Artists and to see them up close in these two empty little churches was oddly exciting.

Tomorrow is a long stage, mostly downhill, but with no place to           break it. We will have to trust to luck.

Radicofani to Acquapendente 7 November

Feet, don’t fail me now! I’m sitting on the bed staring at them, willing them not to hurt. The left one’s OK, but the right one, hmm. I can’t walk across the room, I hop and shuffle, holding the back of the chair, the edge of the table. There will be no walking today. We will just get to Acquapendente today and stay put for a few days to let whatever is wrong settle down.

The signor cheerfully tells us no taxi, no bus. This is a tiny village. And it’s Sunday. But the road below seems to have a bit of traffic, we’ll do our hitching thing again.

There is however a thick mist. Our room is on the second floor and even there we can barely make out the balcony rail. But it’s sure to clear, we tell ourselves and station ourselves at the tiny crossroads. Fifteen minutes later we are getting cold, damp puzzled. Only a few cars have gone by and they are locals. Where is the through traffic? We decide to walk a bit further down to a bigger road.

I’m hobbling along, determined not to limp for fear of setting off some new problem, but every step feels as though someone is hitting the sole of my right heel with a hammer, so it’s not he most elegant gait.

But once committed we can’t really withdraw. Nowhere to withdraw to. 5 km later we are on the busy road, signposted to Rome 150km to the south. To our dismay, no one stops. They wave, they stare, they indicate that they are turning off, but they don’t stop. We walk on to find a better spot. Still nothing happens. We walk on again hoping to find something that will make it work. There’s a lot of traffic, a long industrial area, but still we’re beside that road. We pass a lot of dead things, frogs, a snake, a fox, and some porcupine quills. Still we’re beside that road.

The signor at last night’s hotel had told us that a bus goes from Ponte a Rigo so we decide to make for that. As we get there we see there’s a bar, surely we can pay someone to drive us to Acqupendente, just 15 minutes down the road by car. But the bar is closed. The bus stop tells us that there will be a bus but not till tomorrow morning. Nowhere to stay. What to do? We have walked 14 km and my foot is protesting loudly. Another 15 km to Acquapendente seems impossible.

I have flash of inspiration. We could call hotels in Acqupendente, find one where someone speaks English, explain our plight and plead for help. R puts it into action and after a couple of false starts we strike it lucky. We have a bed for the night and the signora has despatched her husband to pick us up. R’s fearless attempt to explain in italo/anglo, my wife has mal a piede, has saved the day.

We sit at the bus stop waiting, it’s spitting with rain. A lone pilgrim walks by on the other side of the road.

We are ferried to the hotel, two bit, one star but we are way past caring. Our room has two little beds with a curious wardrobe built beside and above them. I lie down and manage to crack my head sitting up twice in the first ten minutes.

I knew there wouldn’t be a bath, we couldn’t be that lucky, but my sore foot as craving to soak in hot water. Ah ha! How about I sit on the toilet lid and put my foot in the bidet? Alas, one star hotels save on heating the water and it’s tepid. Sadly I let the water out and put on warm socks instead.

I stay in the room, reading, ironically, a book about the joys of Tuscany, while R goes out to forage. He comes back. “Have you got the place sussed out?” I ask. “Dogville personified” he replies succinctly. But he has discovered that there is a bus we can take to the little lakeside town of Bolsena, 22 km down the road. Surely we can find a nice hotel there, with views of the lake where we can hole up for a couple of days to recuperate.

R drops a plastic bag in my lap, “treat it with care, half your net worth is in that bag”. I peek in. Every possible over the counter medication that could help my foot is in the bag. Enough top strength Nurofen to fell a horse, a tube of Voltaren gel that could treat a footy team. Surely all this will sort it out.

R is looking out the window and he suddenly says “there’s that pilgrim again”. He has walked the 15 km since we last saw him and is heading up the hill into the old town. Seems a strange coincidence to have glanced out at that moment.

R goes down to the bar to get me a cappuccino. When he comes back he says “You’re missing a really interesting TV show down there – about milking cows.” It’s that sort of town.

It’s been a really taxing day (R puts it a lot more strongly), one in the eye for Pollyanna. And it just got worse. Now it’s pouring with rain. Of course we could very easily be standing beside the road right now, in the dark, in the rain, like two aging hippies, but we are at least dry and warm, I’ve got my foot up and somewhere downstairs someone is cooking dinner. Pollyanna wins again.

Acqupendente to Bolsena 8 November

We have crossed the border from Tuscany into Lazio with Rome at it’s centre. R says “That’s Umbria over there” pointing to a ridge covered in bushes in every Autumn colour off to our left. Maria says Umbria is even more beautiful than Tuscany. If that’s so, I definitely have to come back one day and see it.

We get off the bus at Bolsena. Where to stay? There’s the castle up the hill to our left, the mediaeval town. To our right is the lake. We’ve seen a lot of arches, castles, churches. I have a vision of sitting on a hotel terrace, overlooking the lake. We pass a couple of so places, we’re here for we don’t know how long, let’s see if we can do better. This is a resort town, there must be nice places on the water’s edge.

There it is, 4 star Hotel >Royal. Do they have rooms? Silly question really, it’s well into the off season for a beach holiday hotel. The room is nice, with 20 Euros sliced off the price for the pilgrim discount and a view out the window?

Well it is waterfront, that much fits the picture, the rain has stopped but there is a cold sharp wind whipping up the slatey water into whitecaps. The little waves sound freezing as they splash onto the pebbles at the water’s edge. The café in front is shut tight, chairs piled up. The yachts are all moored in the little harbour.

As I lean out of the window to look along the waterfront, the rain starts to pelt down again, slicing across the view. Another thick layer of autumn leaves falls sodden from the plane trees. I won’t need an umbrella in my drink, thanks. I think I’ll go for hot chocolate instead.

Siena to Buonconvento

The Campo Siena

 

At last, I’ve heard someone say “Mumma Mia!” Not in a cartoon, or a musical, but just say it like…for real.

We are standing at the tourist office in Siena, and the very helpful man has made yet another phone call to try to find us somewhere to stay, but “Mumma Mia” there’s no room at the inn.

We walked into Siena deciding that we would lash out a bit, but if we were going to grace a place with our presence it had to come up to our full wishlist: can walk around the bed, good water pressure, really hot water, can turn around in the shower recess, wool blankets, soft pillows, in the centre of the old town, access to a computer.

We had briskly rejected the first room we were shown as we walked into town, a tiny stinking room with filthy carpet. Then there was no availability at all at the next two hotels we checked out so, puzzled, we headed to the Tourist Information Office.

Aha, it is Halloween tomorrow night and a big public holiday on Monday, All Saints Day. Like Thanksgiving, and Chinese New Year, this is the big one here, and all Italy is on the move. November 1 is the day everyone visits the family graves in the cemetery, so they all go home, or if not, they have a long weekend away.

Siena is packed, but not with tourists. It’s Italians wall to wall and the atmosphere is great. The problem is, all the hotels are full. After the helpful man has rung five with no luck, our wishlist has shrunk to, “Does it have a roof?”.

We are offered the last room in a place just a few steps outside the mediaeval town wall. We sigh, head there prepared to be stoical and undemanding and…step into a little charmer.  We’re thrilled, a hotel with so much character, pretty, individual,  and our room even has a mezzanine. We can’t believe our luck. It reminds us of one of our most favourite places in Spain, Costa Vella, a little family run hotel in Santiago de Compostella.

It has hot showers, wool blankets, oh, who cares about the rest of the list. We explore the place, there is a gravelled garden out the back, an ancient well with a pot of herbs and a terracotta cherub perched on top, a view out to the hills.  R says he’d like to stay forever.

Now here’s the thing about Siena. It is without a doubt one of the prettiest towns in the world, the mediaeval walled part, that is, which is an absolute masterpiece.

Like some other places we’ve seen, it has been preserved because of circumstances that would have been rather unfortunate at the time. The plague hit it and killed half the population, which stopped progress in its tracks, and then , no I won ‘t spoil it…

We walk up the flagged street and in through the huge gate with the big (guess whose) crest on it. Yep it’s those Medicis again.  Now this is puzzling because Siena and Florence were enemies, so why is there a Medici crest here? Because they won, that’s why, and annexed Siena, and whacked their crest all over it. Of course, you can understand it, if you were called, let’s say, Lorenzo the Magnificent, you’d think a few crests were de rigeur.  When it was taken over by Florence it was at first intentionally suppressed. Then the Medicis (during their 300 years of rule) got into their building, arts, sciences, painting, sculpture kick here, just as they did everywhere they were in control.  So it was more and more beautified during that time.

There are lovely buildings everywhere, but what makes you gasp and stare is the Campo, the huge shell-shaped piazza, with the palazzo and the tower, famous from every book on Italy. It’s the pearl, it’s one of the postcard memories I have of Italy from all those years ago. It is just stunning.

It’s getting dark, we sit at a restaurant with a clear view of the circle of graceful, elegant buildings and just drink it in. Finally we wander home, eating a gelato.

It buckets down with rain during the night. The next stage is 30 km, we can’t see how we can break it, and it is a daunting thought to contemplate walking in torrential rain for a very long hard day. So we make a snap decision to stay here for another day, let the weather have a chance to settle, and just enjoy Siena.

We do a few tourist things:

• Check out the museum, recognizing some of my new friends from The Lives of the Artists
• Climb the tower to look at the amazing view, after waiting in a queue for 45 minutes.
• Visit the cathedral with   a) an altar by Michelangelo    b) an altar painting by Bellini   c) a library of a local boy who became pope   d) a stained glass window by the stained glass guy Buoninsegna and 5 Sibyllas in tiles in the floors  e)coloured tiled pictures in the floors by Niccola Pisano  f)a façade by Niccolo’s son Giovanni
• Visit the crypt with frescoes only discovered in 2001

We think we now have had enough culture for one day, it’s still raining and we are hungry. So home, a bite of lunch, and the perfect way to spend a wet afternoon, a siesta.

When it’s Italian time to out to dinner we wander up the street, thronged with children in witches hats and masks and sit down to eat in a little trattoria in a back street. After scanning the menu we pass on the Warm Spleen Sauce, the Toasted Bread and Lard, the Sienese Tripe, even the Pieces of Stewed Wild Boar. We opt for spaghetti and soup. But R just can’t resist the Cooked Whipped Cream with Fruits of Wood for dessert.

Siena to Lucignano D'Arbia 1 November

If you're going to lay some paving, or a stone floor, and you want it to last, say about 800 years, you'd want to do it once and do it right. The Campo is in 9 sections and they've been having the famous horse races there for that long, as well as hordes of people tramping over it for centuries and it looks pretty damn intact. And a floor I saw today in a palazzo simply stopped me in my tracks, so to speak. Smooth, shiny, still perfect after all this time. La la la, I reckon Simon and Garfunkel could do something with that.

We trot around Siena all morning, filling up with culture despite the weather until, coming out of a museum into the Campo and seeing the rain coming down in sheets we decide that we have done everything in Siena that needs to be done and we retreat back into our warm dry hotel.

The Museo Civico had been a treat, though. There were two frescoes so different from anything we have seen. Both were painted in about 1330. One shows a horseman between a couple of castles, but what's special about it is that it is the first ever painting of a naturalistic landscape. I think it's worth about 5 out of 10 on the naturalistic scale but I guess he gets extra marks for thinking up the idea.

Then in the next room, on two walls facing each other, something else never done before. I wonder what the thought process for that is? You're lying in the bath watching your rubber duckie float around and suddenly you get a flash of inspiration..."How about I don't paint another Annunciation pic, sooo bored with them, how about I try something new, could I get away with it? What the hell ('scuse me) I'll do it."

It wasn't quite like that actually (rubber duckies hadn't been invented yet, baths either, really). There were 9 councillors in Siena (and because of that the Campo is set out in 9 sections) and they decided to break the mold. They asked for a pair of paintings  representing the effects of good government and the effects of bad government (to reflect what on them, I wonder...).

But the painting on good government shows, for the first time ever, a secular scene, with people dancing, buying shoes, farming, leading loaded donkeys, building houses. And (I loved this) it shows the exact spot on which our little hotel now stands, just outside the city gate and leading down the hill.

The city with the bad government has met a bad end, and with a lot of the fresco falling off the wall, serves it right, just a few creatures with horns and people in dire straits to make its point.

I think that's enough culture, don't you? Tomorrow we'll stir our lazy backsides and hit the road again, but (sigh) it really does look like this wet weather is setting in. R treats himself to a cigar and we stand in the garden looking at the lights.

Siena to Lucignana d'Arbia 2 November

"Too Pollyanna", says R, reading the instalment I had written yesterday during dinner, "All good news, nothing bad". So I say, "But all the interesting stuff is awful while it's happening, but I'll work in some tired feet or something." Now, I reckon a conversation like that is just asking for it, don't you?

The morning starts well, a bit overcast, but not raining, and as we walk out the sky clears and blue starts to spread all over, with little puffy picturebook clouds. We walked into Siena (who does that?) and we walk out again. Exit through the bookshop. Our hotel is on the Via Roma and just through the Porta Romana, so we reckon we are definitely on the right track. But the Via sign is right beside our hotel and it leads us away from the busy road and straight into countryside. All those rolling hills, dotted with farmhouses and hardly any traffic. It gets quieter and quieter. (In the distance there is a freeway cutting across the landscape and R takes a photo, just to remind us that it's not all picture perfect all the time.) Actually the Frenchman Alain was fascinated by the factories. I always tip my hat down to avoid looking at them when we have to pass one, but, "I am a man from manufacturing", he says and loves to look at them.

He did pose a very interesting question, though. Why are the Medici towers square? It is cheaper to make a round tower of the same height and strength, so why did they choose to make them square. Flaunting their wealth and power, or some other reason? Note to self, ask Andreas, he'll be sure to know.

We walk and walk, it's going to be a long day, even though we have found a place to stay to break the stage. There is a bit of confusion with some of the waymarkers. Actually, it's pretty funny, apparently there is quite a bit of politics and feeling between the two main Italian Via groups, and one of the results is that there are either two waymarkers or none. Like, if yours is up, we have to make our mark too. It's not very saintly! But I guess the history is there, Siena and Florence were at each others' throats for centuries, while at the same time spending a fortune on churches and religious art. The Guelphs and the Ghibellines, Siena backed one, Florence backed the other, the Pope was involved too and they spent hundreds of years, fighting, besieging, plundering. I can't remember which one backed which, and, strangely, those names sound more Dutch than Italian to me. But I digress...

We sit beside the road in the sun, the ground is wet and everything is steaming in the sunshine and have our first little picnic of the day. The countryside is lovely, golden autumn trees everywhere. It looks rather like lots of the folds in the hills around Bathurst in Autumn.  

But somehow we miss a turn, and we don't realise it for a long time, although we are looking at the map and at the gps quizzically from time to time like a pig looking at an armchair. It is becoming clear that all is not well, but the road is a nice quiet backcountry road, hardly any traffic, rising and falling enough to be interesting and very pretty all around. We are sort of heading in the right direction, so we assume that we will meet up with the route sooner or later as it emerges from a track. But we gradually get more and more pessimistic, and the sky is getting darker all the time, with definite signs of rain in the distance and occasional warning shots onto us.

When we reach Radi we have to accept that we have stuffed up. We are several km away from where we want to be, it doesn't sound like much but after walking 20km or so already it is, "Oh darn it" or words to that effect. We are lost, not lost like someone will find our bleached bones one day, but lost like, how to find our way back to where we want to go without walking half the night. So we stop for another little picnic and then change direction, onto a busier road, deciding to see if we can hitch a ride. The first couple of cars whizz by, and R says ,"We might as well accept that we will have to walk it." Around a corner, another car approaches, it's far too dangerous to stop there, no-one would, but, after all, this is Italy, who knows. I stick my thumb up, the car screeches to a halt, perched in the middle of the road, in the middle of a tight corner. We bundle in, the driver is a Professor of Medicine at the University in Siena, he is going near where we want to go.

Up the little hill and into our hotel.

Lucignano d’Arbia to Buonconvento 3 November

It rains a little bit on and off all night, the day dawns bright and blue sky, but the damage is already done.

We set off, perfect weather, hot even, and lovely scenery. The road leads out of pretty little Lucignano d’Arbia and after a brief tricky passage on the wrong side of the Armco, suspended on the steep side of a field, but out of reach of the trucks thundering by in both directions, we find our way down a little path and into the quiet of the countryside.

The track might be fine in summer, baked hard, but with last night’s rain it is slick and slippery. On one side a ploughed field, on the other a railway line. We skate and slide, then as the track gets lower and the grey clay gets wetter, we struggle along, our boots gathering mud until they are covered with a thick clog of mud.

I look at the field, and try it. No, that’s a mistake, I sink even deeper into that soft wet earth, back to the path which stretches out far ahead. “It’s going to be a long 2 kilometres,” says R.

Maybe we will be stranded like a hippopotamus in an African drought, up to our knees in mud and not able to take a step. I’m laughing to myself, thinking of a helicopter sent to rescue us, lifting us up. Our boots pull out of the mud with a sucking sound. The pilot says, “No way, they’re not getting into my helicopter with those boots.”  So we hang on the cables until we are deposited in a carwash and we get the pressure hoses onto it.

I look thoughtfully at the railway line. It looks rusty and disused but I don’t dare try it. For a while I amuse myself imagining walking along the tracks, a train comes suddenly, I don’t have time to get off, I’m knocked over, my feet are cut off, at least I’m free of these boots, but I bleed to death there. It’s very entertaining.  Suddenly a train comes flying past as I watch, startled.

After dragging myself along for an eternity, the track rises a little, there’s a shard of rock and a tuft of grass to step on, then it dries out enough to make it possible to walk, or trudge rather, dragging the weight of my boots along.

After about an hour the track rises, there’s gravel, a little bridge over the railway line. I find the perfect boot scraper, one of life’s little pleasures, a bit of broken pot with a long side and a pointy end. I haven’t seen R for a while and I watch him come into sight.

When he reaches the rise, he says, “Wow, that was tough. I ended up walking on the railway line. It was going well until the train came along.” I check him for missing feet and blood. Neither, all seems in order.

We stop for a little snack and then walk on to the next village. There are sheep all through these parts (that’s rural speak, did you like it?). They are picturesque of course, but the interesting thing is that the flocks all seem to be in the sole care of sheepdogs. They are large white dogs who blend in perfectly and suddenly detach themselves to bark at us enthusiastically as we go by.

Now we have noticed something all along the way in Italy. No-one disciplines their dogs. They bark, no-one takes any notice. They hurl themselves at the fence, there’s never a shout of, “Settle down”. And yesterday one that was not on a chain or behind a fence actually went for us, fangs flashing, with its owner watching impassively, showing mild amusement. R beat it back with his trekking pole and it retreated. They do seem to understand a stick. After joking with each other about catapults we have actually seen them for sale once or twice, so tempting.

Now, another mystery. When does all the building get done?  Everywhere there is scaffolding, and signs of activity, but the only time you see any actual work on these sites is early in the morning, when occasionally you can spot someone throwing a rope up. Then…nothing. Of course, you have to have siesta, mate. And after that it’s hardly worth starting, it’ll get dark too soon. Or it’s Saturday afternoon, or Sunday, or it’s wet, or hot, or… In a country full of fabulous and magnificent buildings, how on earth did they get built?

We arrive in Buonconvento early in the afternoon, take a stroll, looking at the so familiar town walls and gates with the Medici style. Buonconvento had the dual good luck in times gone by to be at the confluence of two rivers and on the route of the Via, so it prospered, but this also made it vulnerable to attack, hence the walls, which still seem to contain most of the town. It’s easy to imagine it in times gone by.

I’m immensely diverted by the fact that the hotel tonight is the Hotel Ghibellino. So easily amused. I check with the receptionist. Were the Ghibellines with Siena or Florence? She is visibly shocked…Siena, Signora