Day 37 - San Quirico d’Orcia to Castelnuovo dell’abate- Tuesday July 21, 2015

Even with three fans in the room last night it was unbearably hot. Lying awake in the heat I figured out that we should have stayed in the other room. It had a bigger window right beside the bed. The problem in our room was that the window was small, at the end of the room, and there were no plugs near it. So we couldn’t drag cool air from outside into the room, just push the hot air in the room around.

Thankfully earlier in the day I could smell an air freshen, and Russell located it and we put it out of commission. People, people, people, no scents make good sense!

We got up early, fixed our own breakfast, and were on the road at 7:15am. We were aiming for 7, but weren’t moving too fast after not sleeping much last night.

It was a very pleasant walk today, for the most part. It was a lot cooler outside than in B&B when we set out, which was a relief.

95% of the route today was unpaved. I much appreciated that, although a lot of it was on hard packed dirt roads, so not much better on the feet. We had a good climb getting out of San Quirico for the first 5 km, but then we started a rather massive descent, doing our usual up and then down one mountain, to climb up another. We went past the impressive Ripa d’Orcia Castle, which is now an ‘agritourismo’ so visitors are not allowed. 

The B&B we stayed at last night was not the same as the one in our pre travel package. The one we were supposed to stay in had a pool. Darn you Beppe. I was keeping my eye out for it, it was an agritourism place, but never saw it.

For much of the walk today, we could also see Siena in the distance. We saw Siena most of the day yesterday as well.

We were basically in farm land, passing a lot of farms and wineries. We climbed over a train tunnel at one point, and met several loose dogs as well.

It was very hot by 9:30am again. Thankfully we had a reasonable amount of shade scattered throughout the walk.

We were very proud of ourselves today – we never got lost! In fact, at all times we were in sync with the GPS and route notes. What we are discovering now, as we get closer to Rome, is that there are several different via Francigena routes one can take, and in both directions (ie, Rome to Canterbury and Canterbury to Rome) are marked. So when we get to an intersection, or a Y, or a cross road, there are VF signs going in all directions. It is at times like these that our route notes come in very handy (I knew the day would come when we would truly appreciate them).

As usual, it was a very steep climb for about the last 3km, and very hot. 

We arrived at the city at km 13.4 on our route notes at 11am. Our route notes stopped there again, and then gave us the address of our lodging. We hate that.  We stopped at a bar and had a cold water then a lemon soda (my new favorite drink), and carried on. There was a mother of a hill ahead, with a bunch of men sitting on benches in the shade part way up. We asked about our B&B and they all pointed up the hill, and one fellow said ‘then to the right’. Up we went and fairly easily found the B&B. In total we walked 13.5km today and climbed 609 meters.

Of course no one was at the B&B, and an elderly lady was out on her balcony talking to us fervently in Italian, which of course we couldn’t understand. Then her elderly husband came out in nothing but his shorts, saying ‘too hot’ and led us to (possibly) the husband of the lady running the B&B. I showed him the voucher and he disappeared into his house for a while, during which time an English speaking fellow from Britain who lives in Italy but is vacationing here, arrived and he became our translator. Stephania, who runs the B&B, isn’t coming to the city until around 4pm, but we got all settled in, with all the info on where supper is, the wifi password, etc. It is a three floor house, with two bedrooms on the top floor, a kitchen and living room on the first floor, and the entrance on the ground level. Our bags were sitting just inside the door, and poor Russell had to haul them up to the second floor. No one else is here. Very lovely place, but no fans or air conditioner. What the room has going for it is three windows on two sides, so please Lord, if there is any breeze tonight we may be okay.

It is 41 degrees. The only way to get some relief is to have a shower, which we have both done repeatedly throughout the day. The Abbey of Sant’Antimo is just outside the town and you can arrange to go listen to the monks chant at 12:30 and 14:45. It is apparently one of the most beautiful Romanesque churches in Italy. According to legend it is on the site of an ancient chapel built to the orders of Charlemagne in 781. We were aiming for 12:30 but missed that so got some lunch and then had a nap until 14:15. I had asked the British fellow about hearing the monks chant and asked where the abbey was. He has owned a vacation house here for years and has never gone to the abbey. The place he told us was the abbey was wrong as well.

Of course the abbey was at the bottom of the mother of a hill I mentioned earlier. We set off to find the abbey. 41 degrees is unbelievably hot. We walked for maybe a kilometer and figured out that we were on the wrong road to get to the place the British fellow said was the abbey. We could see cars going to the parking lot of the place, and it must have been at least two kilometers and involved a massive descent and steep climb (ie, we would get hit with the same both ways). It was just too hot, we had missed the chats by this time anyway, so climbed back up the mother of a hill to our B&B and had another shower then a nap until dinner.

Russell then figured out that the British fellow was wrong, and the big place we thought was the abbey was something else. If we had gone maybe 250 meters further on the road we were on we would have gotten to the much more modest abbey. We also would have made it in time for the chants.  We should have checked that out in advance. Or maybe it would have been nice if our route notes told us how to get there, after they recommended we go there.

Before going to dinner we went off to find Stephania. She had already been here leaving us supplies for breakfast, but we were sleeping. So we are all set to make an early get away tomorrow. Tomorrow is billed as 19km. I think that is pushing it in this heat, but Russell seems to think it is only 15km (the route notes so far have always underestimated how far we have to go – for one thing they don’t add in all the kilometers we have to backtrack when we get lost, and usually don’t take us to our lodging). I fully expect it to be at least 20km, so we will very likely be walking after noon.

Where we had to go for dinner was at the bottom of that massive hill, of course. We trudged down there. We were given a very limited choice of two things, a starter and a primo. We both got a salad (which wasn’t one of the choices, but he went along with it as a cheaper substitute for a starter. I had spaghetti and Russ had this ricotta cheese and spinach ravioli which ended up being covered in salad. So he didn’t need a salad after all, and the ravioli would have been better with a sauce. We ate outside and there were a million flies and wasps. It really did ruin an otherwise perfectly mediocre supper. A fly landed in my glass of wine and when I fished it out it staggered around on the table cloth. Russell was kind enough to switch glasses of wine with me, and after that I kept a piece of bread covering my wine glass. As soon as we finished we got up and left to escape the flies and wasps. It was a pretty awful experience.

Of course then we had to climb that hill again for the third time today! Had another shower, and are just trying to survive this heat with no fan or air conditioner. There is also a party going on at the bar a block away, so it is very noisy. I’m going to get out my ear plugs.

Tomorrow is another day.