We left Arlanda airport at an ungodly hour, arriving in Rome at mid-day. After spending the afternoon by ourselves we joined up with the group for a guided walk around the must-sees of the city.
After eating breakfast and gathering our luggage, we boarded the bus for the transport north to Siena. The journey was eventless, except for the fact that it took almost as long to get from central Rome to the motorway as it took to travel the rest of the distance. And I thought Stockholm traffic was bad...
It was the day after il palio, the horse race round Piazza del Campo, the central square of Siena, where the contradas (neighbourhoods; I wonder what the correct Italian plural is...) decide who is the coolest, or at least who has hired the best horse and jockey. Judging by the colours displayed by a procession that turned up on the square around lunchtime, the "unicorn" contrada won this time.
Again, we had a guided walk through the town. The cathedral in Siena was left without financing in mid-construction, and has been like that for several hundred years. It gives an Escher-ish feeling of not quite knowing whether one is inside or outside it.
Finally, it was time for another short bus transport to the edge of town, where we met Lorenzo, our bike transporter and mechanic. After a lot of tweaking of saddles, handlebars and helmets we finally pedalled out into the Tuscany countryside.
We spent the night in Vescovado, which was to be our "base camp" for the coming three days. After breakfast, we climbed our bikes again. The first stop was Buonconvento. My sister had been talking lyrically about italian ice cream, and I was anxious to try this delicacy. Unfortunately, the café we found had more or less the same multi-national ice-cream brands that we have in Sweden. At least they had coffee-flavoured magnum, something I have never seen at home.
After Buonconvento, it was off into the (sunflower) fields again, towards the monastery at Monte Oliveto Maggiore. The hills in this area are quite steep and the soil, called crete senese, is not very resistant to erosion. At one place, half the road had slid down the hill.
The final stop of the day was the small town of Asciano.
After the now-customary bus transport to a suitable starting point (Poggibonsi, this time) we set off towards today's destination, San Gimignano. This was one of the shortest legs on the trip but also one of the most demanding, since most of it was steeply uphill.
San Gimignano is sometimes called "The Medieval Manhattan", for obvious reasons. The towers once served as combined status symbols and defense installations.
Today, most of the town seems to be living on tourism -- the place even has a .com domain name. At least one of the towers, la Grande Torre is open to the public, giving a fantastic view of the surrounding landscape. We had a delicious picnic lunch, and then spent the afternoon strolling round the town.
We left Vescovado for the last time, passing the etruscian village Murlo, famous for its cowboy hat. I did not manage to get a single good photo here, so I will have to leave the slideshow to the archaeologists.
Today, the main stop was Montalcino, where we climbed around the old fortress enjoying the view, had the chance to do a side-by-side comparison of two of the (supposedly) best wines from the area (unfortunately, I am the kind of person who cannot tell the difference between red wine and white wine with food colour in it, so I cannot offer any of the usual wine taster phrases) and, at least in my case, walked around town photographing things.
After Montalcino, we continued to Bagno Vignoni, a town completely dominated by its old thermal baths. Most of the main square is occupied by a huge basin where the water flows up at 52°C.
The desination for this last full day of cycling was Pienza. Pope Pio II was born here, under the name Piccolomini and, after he became pope changed the village into a town in an unusually consistent renaissance style.
More cycling and a visit to the sulfurous hot springs / baths at Saturnia, after which everyone would turn their heads around and wonder where the smell of sulphur came from whenever we took a break on the bus transport back to Rome. No pictures worthy of publishing, I'm afraid.
Bus transfer to the airport and flight back to Sweden, which was -- luckily! -- unusually hot, even for this time of the year, giving me some time to re-adapt to the arctic climate.
