Just to set your expectations, there isn’t a great deal of news today. That doesn’t mean that we had the day off – far from it.
We had a delightful day driving around Tuscany. Soaking in the sights, sounds, smells, and taste of Tuscany.
We had a really relaxing day.
From our research, there are a number of townships (or villages) around La Gruccia that we wanted to visit. So, with three full days here, we have headed off in a slightly different direction each day.
Today was south and east.
Before we left home this morning, we packed our swimmers. Yep, pretty random, I know. It’s hardly the weather for going to the beach.
Nearby La Gruccia, there are a few places where there are hot mineral baths that are (mostly) free to use. So we picked our favourite, and set off.
That will be Bagno Vignoni, about an hour and a quarter from home.
Once again, I find myself with no sense of direction. Someone has suggested to me that the problem is we are used to the sun being in front of us, in the north, but here it is behind us. So everything seems back-to-front.
So many of the roads that we tend to travel along are these narrow and winding bits of bitumen (and sometimes just gravel). You never have this sense that you are generally heading in one direction, but going around in circles.
Maybe not going around in circles, but doubling back on yourself the whole time.
And Joséphine doesn’t help … she will issue an instruction to “keep left”, when what she meant was “turn left”. So we often find ourselves on the wrong road and having to turn around.
Which – by the way – does absolutely nothing to help address the feeling like I’m going around in circles, because I am going around in circles.
Anyway, we were on our way to Bagno Vignoni – we’d only been gone from home for about 5 minutes – and we took a wrong turn based on an ambiguous intruction from Joséphine, and we found ourselves in a little cluster of houses in Poggibonsi – the area in which we live.
Driving here is so different to driving at home. When I think of the trip from home to Capalaba, we follow straight lines, turn 90 degree corners, and follow more straight lines. And it’s all relatively flat.
But here, there are sharp corners and turns, and steep hills both up and down. So you never have the opportunity to become complacent or relaxed, because you can come around a corner and be pulling out onto another road with virtually no visibility.
The cluster of houses that we found ourselves in was – like so many that we have seen – at the top of a hill and surrunded by a high stone wall.
It obviously wasn’t where Joséphine wanted me to be and she was confused. I was confused because I found myself in somebody’s front yard with nowhere to go, and the owners were confused because I was an execpected guest.
Although to be fair, I spend most of my time confused.
We did a hasty turn and got back onto the right road towards Bagno Vignoni.
It was a pleasant drive in the Italian countryside, but the closer we got to Bagno Vignoni, the more people we saw walking or cycling on the road.
Very confusing.
We found the township, avoided the ZTL, and found a parking space at the side of the road. Paid our €1.50 into the parking meter and went for a walk.
I’m sorry to say that Bagno Vignoni was a bust. They do have a big hot springs bath in the centre of town, but they (the township) have closed it off to visitors, leaving the local spa place as your only option.
There are some other hot springs baths around the place, but they were either too far away, or you needed to walk some distance into the bush to get access … and that wasn’t happening.
But we did solve the mystery of the people walking and cycling. There is a “trail” that you follow that is taken on foot (or by pushbike, I suspect) and it takes you between particular villages. It is obviously very popular as there were lot of people moving around.
From there we headed to San Quirico d’Orcia. This is a little village that was made famous due to the making of a movie called La Dolce Villa, where most of the filming occurred.
We found the little village square that was featured prominently, although we have also learned that the movie directors built a little fountain in the square, and the fountain doesn’t exist in real life.
Sigh. Another bubble burst 🙁
It was still a pretty and unique village, and we went outside the city walls to have lunch – a Tagliere, which is a share platter of meats, cheeses, sun-dried tomatoes, breads, olive oil and honey.
There is a classic Italian/Tuscan image that shows a line of cypress trees going down a slope with a road in the middle. We wanted to see if we could find that location. Whle we didn’t find that exact location of that famous image (it was a long way away from where we were), we did drive through some spectacularly beautiful countryside of rolling green hills.
All so very different to Australia, where we drive along roads surrounded by bush and scrub. This is like driving through Maleny, all the time.
We needed to go through Siena to get home, and it is another one of those places that the books say to visit. Joséphine successfully took us into Siena and I was following a bus, when I realised that he was going into a ZTL, and I only realised just in time.
That was all a bit close for comfort. I thought we had instructed Joséphine to warn us about ZTLs.
So we dove around looking for somewhere to park outside the city walls, but it was manic Friday afternoon traffic with nowhere to park.
We haven’t yet figured out all of the parking signs that are in Italian, so we couldn’t work out if the places with available parking were resident parking, or what was going on.
It was after 3.30 and we were getting tired of battling the traffic, so we headed for home.
I think I have developed an ability to ignore the crazy Italians … if I am puddling along at the speed limit and they want to go faster, they come zooming up behind you and sit on your back bumper.
The instinctive response is to speed up to get away from them – but that’s what they want you to do. So I have learned to just ignore them and maintain my speed, and I find that they drop back, wait for an opportunity to pass, and go flying past.
It all feels very aggressive – and maybe it is – but maybe it’s just the way they drive.
Personally I’m happy to just stick to the speed limits and enjoy the view.
Life’s too short.
We got back to the AirBNB around 4.30pm. MBW gave my hair a bit of a tidy-up so that I don’t look like a woolly mammoth any longer, and we have settled in for an early dinner.
Sunset here is technically 7.53pm, so you get this beautiful soft light late into the afternoon, with a coolness in the air, but a warmth from the sun.
And everything is basking in this soft glow of the afternoon sunshine.
I can see why people love living here. I can think of worse places to live.
Ciao
#Europe2025
Looks lovely and that lunch! Yummy! Still not many people around the little village streets by the look of it. Stay safe on the roads with those mad Italians!