Buonconvento to San Quirico d'Orcia

Wordle done, bags dropped, breakfast, quick stop at the bakery across the road, and we left Buonconvento. Except we didn't. There was a small market just outside the town wall (ie 75m away) so we looked around, bought some cheese, and and set off properly at 8:55.

After some roads, we had a gravel path/white road and then hour after hour of some of the most consistently amazing scenery. Tuscan landscapes on all sides, with hills, forts, towns and trees in the distance.

It was cool, slightly cloudy, and flattish for the first 5km. Perfect. The weather stayed the same, but the were some noticeable ups and downs before a small town (Torreniero) with a church that had a memorial to soldiers in WW1 and WW2. It was the first we had seen in Italy: they were everywhere in France. After the town we were back on a hard but mostly unused road, where the bigger danger was the cyclists freewheeling almost noiselessly down the steep hill we first had to climb. Then some more undulating (unundulating - is it different?) land, where we stopped in an olive grove for lunch, before the ubiquitous steep hill into the old fortress town of San Quirico d'Orcia. But still with views all the way!

SQd'O is remarkable. It is a cross between the best aspects of San Gimignano and Buonconvento, and almost none of the downsides. It is a medieval town inside the remnants of a wall, and is where parts of Gladiator was filmed. The Etruscans lived here. Frederick Barbarossa stayed here in 1155 when he was negotiating with papal emissaries. It has at least three churches, all built (or started) in the 11th -13th C. It is small enough to see in half an hour, but big enough to have curious little passages and alleyways, and a few surprises like a 16th C formal garden without any sort of stately house. Far fewer tourists, and locals who are just going about their lives rather than trying to sell gelato or fake leather goods.

The hotel is a two-suite B&B. Our room is large, and there is a kitchen, but dinner and breakfast have been outsourced to local cafes. Breakfast seems to be limited to coffee and a croissant, so it will likely rate on the abominable end of every spectrum. Thankfully there is a kitchen with a kettle and tea. Dinner was outsourced to a very expensive nearby "Bottega" where you could order anything... subject to a low total cap. We had a table at the end of a narrow passage, but it was light: we were right next to a glass window looking onto the street.

Tomorrow is a short day - 15km - so we will look at some of the sights along the way, like the untouched medieval village on the way with a thermal spring in the village square, and maybe another old church. To make it even easier, daylight saving ends tonight.

34,949 steps, 27.8km, 57 flights, and 234km to Rome.Read more