Toscana - Day 2
Our first full day in Tuscany started with an adventure!
The road that we had planned to take was closed off and so we embarked on a detour - very sparingly signposted - on unpaved and pot-holed country roads. At a fork, we chose the wrong track and ended up in someone's farm surrounded by chickens and pigs!
Eventually we made it onto the made road, suitably rattled and shaken!
The first stop of the day was the Abbey of Sant'Antimo.
It was my 3rd time there and Adrian's 2nd - we both had this memory of a rather isolated place but in fact the abbey is overlooked by a nearby village.
It was quite beautiful, surrounded by old olive trees and cypresses growing out of a meadow of white flowers. And there we had the best weather of the day (cloudy with the sun trying to push through).
The legend says that the abbey was founded by Charlemagne.
The church feels quite solemn. It's just a shame that most of it was cordoned off.
The other 3 stops of the days were in unchartered territory, south of Monte Amiata, an extinct volcano which has left this corner of southern Tuscany with many hot springs and hills made of tufo rock.
The towns of Sovana, Sorano and Pitigliano are known as "Le Citta' del Tufo" and belong to the Maremma, the stretch of southern Tuscany that goes from the border with Umbria to the sea.
All 3 places are also famous for the Etruscan tombs cut in the tufo (tuff) rock.
Sovana is really just a village, paved with bricks and sporting 2 very atmospheric churches (Santa Maria and a cathedral mainly dating from the 11th-12th century but with older parts).
Pitigliano is the largest of the three, and was also known as 'The Little Jerusalem' for the presence of a sizeable Jewish community which at one point made up 1/4th of the town's population.
(The Orsini family's bear)
Here we had a walk around town and visited the sinagogue (late 16th century but recently rebuilt after it collapsed in a landslide) built over a series of caves, one of which was used as the bakery.
The aqueduct built by the Medici is also rather impressive.
The town is surrounded by a number of 'vie cave', which are paths/trenches dug by the Etruscans about 25-27 centuries ago in the soft stone. Some of them are a few meters deep! We visited one of them, under the rain.
The final stop of the day was the town of Sorano, where we only had time for a quick stroll around.
(These holes are more Etruscan tombs).
We got back to the B&B when it was already dark and time to go out for dinner.
We went to the medieval hamlet of Murlo to a restaurant run by 3 ladies. The meal was so enjoyable (and so reasonably priced) that we went back another 2 nights.
I had Pici - a local type of pasta - made with chestnut flour (Adrian had lasagne)
For main course we both had pork in a peppercorn and gorgonzola sauce.
The road that we had planned to take was closed off and so we embarked on a detour - very sparingly signposted - on unpaved and pot-holed country roads. At a fork, we chose the wrong track and ended up in someone's farm surrounded by chickens and pigs!
Eventually we made it onto the made road, suitably rattled and shaken!
The first stop of the day was the Abbey of Sant'Antimo.
It was my 3rd time there and Adrian's 2nd - we both had this memory of a rather isolated place but in fact the abbey is overlooked by a nearby village.
It was quite beautiful, surrounded by old olive trees and cypresses growing out of a meadow of white flowers. And there we had the best weather of the day (cloudy with the sun trying to push through).
The legend says that the abbey was founded by Charlemagne.
The church feels quite solemn. It's just a shame that most of it was cordoned off.
The other 3 stops of the days were in unchartered territory, south of Monte Amiata, an extinct volcano which has left this corner of southern Tuscany with many hot springs and hills made of tufo rock.
The towns of Sovana, Sorano and Pitigliano are known as "Le Citta' del Tufo" and belong to the Maremma, the stretch of southern Tuscany that goes from the border with Umbria to the sea.
All 3 places are also famous for the Etruscan tombs cut in the tufo (tuff) rock.
Sovana is really just a village, paved with bricks and sporting 2 very atmospheric churches (Santa Maria and a cathedral mainly dating from the 11th-12th century but with older parts).
Pitigliano is the largest of the three, and was also known as 'The Little Jerusalem' for the presence of a sizeable Jewish community which at one point made up 1/4th of the town's population.
(The Orsini family's bear)
Here we had a walk around town and visited the sinagogue (late 16th century but recently rebuilt after it collapsed in a landslide) built over a series of caves, one of which was used as the bakery.
The aqueduct built by the Medici is also rather impressive.
The town is surrounded by a number of 'vie cave', which are paths/trenches dug by the Etruscans about 25-27 centuries ago in the soft stone. Some of them are a few meters deep! We visited one of them, under the rain.
The final stop of the day was the town of Sorano, where we only had time for a quick stroll around.
(These holes are more Etruscan tombs).
We got back to the B&B when it was already dark and time to go out for dinner.
We went to the medieval hamlet of Murlo to a restaurant run by 3 ladies. The meal was so enjoyable (and so reasonably priced) that we went back another 2 nights.
I had Pici - a local type of pasta - made with chestnut flour (Adrian had lasagne)
For main course we both had pork in a peppercorn and gorgonzola sauce.