San Quirico d'Orcia to Gallina - AM

This was some day, so we will recount it in two parts.

To avoid the 1 coffee/1 croissant outsourced cafe breakfast, we had some toast and tea (and coffee) in the B&noB kitchen, then stopped at Bar Centrale to have our allocated breakfast to start the trail. The B&noB had a great room, and the cafe offered huge foccacia as an alternative to croissants, so it was not a bad morning, after all.

Second stop was the town's oldest church, the tiny Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta. It was 50 metres from where we stayed. The church was built in the second half of the 11th C and still has its original early 12th C bell-tower. It had a plain marble interior which focused on Jesus rather than Mary.

Third stop - and this time it was a 5km walk - was Vignoni Alto, a tiny, untouched medieval village. By tiny, I mean perhaps 30m by 10m inside the remnants of a wall, and no cars in the four or five little alleys. It had spectacular views, and a church like the Church of St Mary of the Assumption, with an equally-old looking bell-tower.

Next - another few kms - was Bagno Vignoni, another small medieval town with a thermal spring in the centre. This time, cars could easily get there, and the tourist buses were shedding flocks of tourists. Admittedly, we are tourists, too, but arriving by foot provides a moral elevation. This village was Etruscan, then Roman, and is recorded in documents from the 10th C. It also had a church dedicated to Rose's saint, St Catherine.

And then, around midday, we deviated off the track for a bit and walked up to Rocca d'Orcia, another small medieval village, and again on a hilltop, but overlooked by an old tower - Rocca a Tentennano. We had seen the tower on the horizon for some time, so it had to be climbed. My blisters were okay with that, but the last section would involve a lot of steps going down, which would not help the ones on Anne's toes. She stopped at the level with a statue of St Catherine, whom we now notice all the time. It was a relatively fine day, and the views from near the top, and then the very top, were astounding.

Only half a day, and only 14.5 kms and 50 flights so far, but Tuscany +++.Read more