Walking in circles 4: Closing the circle!

Badesse - Taverne d'Arbia 26 km

It was a long walk, but today I closed the circle! 

Grande Anello di Siena: 74.2 km 

Didn't have much choice, really. Bus schedules around here are designed for workers, not walkers, and operate on a reduced schedule on Saturdays, and an even more reduced schedule or none at all on Sundays. Even trains are less frequent - particularly at the current time. As a result, I had to wait until 11:45 to catch the first train out to Badesse, where I left off yesterday. 

This was my first train ride in the Time of Covid, and it was only seven minutes long, so it was a gentle introduction. 

Clean, sanitised & pre-distanced train 

It was noon by the time I was out the rear side of the station and the underpass below the Florence-Siena highway and back onto the trail. It was hot slogging up and down those hills under the midday sun on the first day of summer, but the amazing views made it truly worthwhile! 

This is Chianti country! After walking from Badesse (which, as the name implies, used to belong to the Abbess of a large convent) uphill to Miniera (which, as the name implies, used to to be a mine...), I carried on along the ridge past a large flock of sheep in a field. I could make out that at least one of the white figures was a sheepdog, not a sheep - the pastore maremmano is a particularly large and excitable sheepdog which cunningly blends in with its flock by growing to the exact same height as a sheep and dressing itself in a shaggy white coat - but there was a human shepherd on duty as well, and trusting in the shepherd's ability to keep his dog under control, I proceeded confidently on my way, despite the frail look of the fence separating the path from the field of sheep. As it turned out, none of the creatures in the field paid me any attention, or even seemed to notice my passing. I descended to cross a stream, the Staggia, passed an equestrian establishment and climbed up the hill on the other side to Quercegrossa and the village of La Ripa, a couple of rows of houses with no public facilities. By the time I had come through the village I was ready for a break, and I found the perfect place, a series of large, flat rocks to sit on in the shade of a stand of oaks. After a brief rest lying flat on a cool rock in the shade, I resumed my walk, descending into another valley and crossing another stream and a paved road before heading back uphill among the wheat fields and vineyards. 

By this time the tall, dramatic clouds I had seen on the horizon when I began my walk were coming closer, and at the same time I was coming closer to them, and just as they began to take on an ominous aspect with an occasional rumble of thunder, I came to Cellole: an abandoned farmhouse at the top of a hill with stunning views in every direction. On one side of the abandoned and boarded-up building was another, smaller house which looked inhabited, though no-one appeared to be at home; on the other side was an old granary, subsequently used as a storage shelter for farm utensils, and most recently used by walkers seeking shade or shelter from the rain. So I guessed from the two stumps upended to make seats just inside the arch of the entrance. This looked like the ideal place to wait out the storm if it should burst, so I stopped nearby to eat my lunch, take a rest on the grass and wait to see if the storm broke. It did eventually, though it only rained for five minutes, so I probably could have just kept on walking! However, after taking shelter for those five minutes, I sat on a low wall next to the house and watched the storm move off, just to be sure it was gone. Sitting and watching a thunderstorm move across the sky for an hour or so is something is something I had never taken the time to do before. An amazing spectacle! I was not bored for a single minute of the wait. And though I still had a long way to walk, I had no worries about the time, it being the longest day of the year!

Shelter from the storm

          

Once the storm had rumbled off westwards towards Siena, I carried on walking to Monaciano, a manor house with rooms and event spaces available for rent which, like so many similar places I have been walking past these past few days, was quiet and apparently deserted apart from the people who run it. I did not take the optional detour to the Certosa di Pontignano, though I could see it over on the next ridge and it looked interesting; my way is already long today without any optional detours! I shall visit another time. I crossed a small bridge in the woods over another stream, the Bozzone, then climbed steeply up to the castle of Monteliscai. 

From here I followed the lane beside the wall of a villa with a large garden and what must once have been a grand avenue, lined by cypress tress but now somewhat dilapidated and overgrown, leading to a small chapel. I passed the winery of San Giorgio a Lapi and the little hilltop chapel of San Giorgino.   

From here I proceeded down into the valley to cross the stream again, then up a paved road to Pieve di Bozzone and on to the village of Vico d'Arbia. By now evening was coming, and so I took the shortest possible route from there to Taverne d'Arbia, about five kilometres, in the gentle evening sun under a dramatic sky.  

At the end of this day packed with amazing skies and landscapes, one more treat was in store for me: the ghost town of Presciano. Only a couple of households live in the village, the rest being abandoned, neglected and overgrown as a result of a legal dispute. I hope the village will soon be reclaimed and revived, before the buildings become irreparably damaged; but in its present crumbling state it has a unique charm! 

Taverne d'Arbia also has a disused old mill, the Mulino dei Muratori, so it's an ideal place for fans of both ghost towns and industrial archaelogy!

 

The town's other, more modern attraction is a pair of mural paintings by Sienese artist Francesco del Casino on the walls of the underpass below the Siena - Arezzo highway. Walking rather than driving along the road under the highway gives you time to enjoy them. Commissioned by the local branch of the national blood donors' association (AVIS), the paintings have two themes: the spirit of solidarity, and commemoration of the battle of Monteaperti, which took place nearby on September 6, 1260, when the Sienese troops soundly defeated those of Florence, leaving 10,000 dead on the battlefield. As Dante describes it in the Divine Comedy, "Il grande scempio che fece l'Arbia colorata in rosso" - A massacre so great the Arbia River flowed red with blood. Perhaps that's another reason the blood donors' association chose this theme!

I closed the circle as I crossed the bridge over the Arbia River! A total of 74 kilometres, over four days (two half days and two full days). 

On my way to the train station, I saw people waiting at a bus stop, and so I joined them and a bus to Siena came along in three minutes, saving me the walk from the station back home - the last thing I needed at this point in the day! 

Thus ended my Long Walk in a Big Circle around Siena! 

 

Walking in circles 3

Day three on the Grande Anello di Siena: San Rocco a Pilli - Badesse, 25 km!

Woken up by the song of the swallows darting about outside the window, I heard the church bells toll 6 times and decided to get up and take the 7:00 bus back to San Rocco a Pilli to resume my walk in the cool morning air. 

And the wet morning grass! After getting off the bus right by the villa where I did yoga last night, I followed the road - closed to traffic due to a landslide, so I could walk right in the middle - until my route veered off along a gravel road which soon became a dirt track through tall grass wet with morning dew. Thus I discovered that it is possible to wash your trousers while hiking! My trousers dried quickly, but my boots and wool socks stayed soggy for the rest of the day. 

100% natural trouser washing machine

After this wash-as-you-go experience, I took a short detour to Linari: a site already inhabited by the Etruscans 2500 years ago, which became a fortress in the eleventh century, then a convent, a stopping-place on the road to Rome (Pope Alexander III stayed there in the 12th century), before being transformed into a private country home in 1735 and, finally, into its present condition as San Lorenzo a Linari Resort, which looks like a beautiful place for a holiday, or to hold a family celebration, wedding etc.

Detail of Linari

From here I passed through a cluster of houses called La Corte and descended into the woods, coming out in an expanse of wheat fields. 

A shady path along the bank of a stream took me to Ponte allo Spino, the first possible point of return to Siena by bus. But it was only 9:30 am so of course I continued on my way, past the hamlet of Toiano, where I got a little confused by the rather vague description of the trail at this point and worried that if my phone battery went dead, I would not have the gpx track to refer to and would get hopelessly lost! However I found a shorter route to Santa Colomba, staying on the CAI trail 113 instead of turning off it and walking the route described in the directions, and it was a perfectly pleasant trail through the woods, though of course I don't know what marvels I may have missed by not following E. Desi's instructions!     

In Santa Colomba I was hoping to find a coffee bar where I could take a break and recharge my phone. There was no such thing, but there was something even better: a beautiful medieval church, with an electrical outlet in the corner of the transept! So I could admire 13th century frescoes while waiting for my phone to charge! 

I spent a lot of time looking at this view, from the pew by the electrical outlet!

 

Luckily I had some pretty nice frescoes to look at!

Villa Petrucci, also known as Palazzo di Santa Colomba

What I really wanted to do while waiting for my phone to charge was kick off my shoes, hang up my socks to dry, and eat the slices of leftover pizza I had in my backpack, but as none of these were compatible with decorous behaviour in a church, I had to content myself with studying the frescoes on the walls while listening to someone practicing the guitar in the house next door.  A note of variety was added when a crazy cyclist came into the church, insisted on speaking to me in English and launched on a tirade about coronovirus conspiracy theories (I think that's what he was talking about, it was kind of hard to understand his Italianate English echoing around the empty church). When this amusement was over and the deranged cyclist had resumed his ride, I decided to content myself with a 75% charge and continue on my way, hoping to find a nice place to stop to eat lunch and dry out my shoes soon!

Refreshed by my long rest in the cool, dark church, I didn't end up stopping until an hour or so later,  when I came to Punto Sosta la Villa, a pilgrim rest stop on the Via Francigena. Marcello from the house next door maintains this rest stop for tired pilgrims with benches, a water tap, a first aid kit, a stamp for the credenziale, a mirror (not sure why pilgrims would want that) and even some cutlery in case you want to eat your picnic but are at a loss how to slice your cheese. All has been made sanitary this year, with hand sanitiser and netting around the water tap to make sure you fill your bottle without touching the spout. The signs says that Marcello will also make you coffee or tea, and I think he may also serve sandwiches in regular times, but at the moment, with few or no pilgrims going by, I doubt he is offering that service. In any case, I merely asked if he minded if I sit under the big oak tree on his property to eat my picnic. There, I could relax knowing I was in a pilgrim-friendly and guard dog-free place, so I ate my cold pizza, drank my thermos of water flavoured with elderflower syrup and mint (a highly recommended refreshment on hot, sunny days) and even took a little nap while waiting for my shoes and socks to dry out in the sun.

Arriving at Punto Sosta La Villa on the Via Francigena

       

After this break I was ready for the last stretch of today's walk, heading north along a familiar stretch of the Via Franicigena, past the Castello de La Chiocciola, so named for the spiral staircase in the tower, where you expect to see Rapunzel gazing out the window at the top. 

Castello de La Chiocciola

 

The castle is built on a site that has been inhabited not only since Etruscan times but since the stone age - apparently there is a paleolithic cave in the cellar, but it is impossible to say for sure, since it's privately owned and not open to visitors. The castle itself was built in medieval times and became one of a series of outposts defending the city of Siena from its arch-enemy, Florence. 

North of the castle, the Via Francigena skirts a field of red soil dotted with white stones - very different from the clayey soil of the Crete Senesi where I was yesterday and the day before. I wish I knew more about geology to explain why! 

At the far end of this field I turned right to cross the field, then left the Via Francigena and crossed its modern equivalent, the Via Cassia (named after the Roman road that predated the Francigena, but now a national highway), and climbed up the hill to Poggiolo, then down the other side to Badesse, the end point of today's walk. Badesse was originally the site of a convent which possessed all the land around it (hence the name), but is now one of the industrial districts of Siena. I walked only as far as the nearest bus stop, where I was extremely lucky to find that the last bus of the day was coming along in ten minutes! Schedules are reduced on Saturdays, and most rural buses don't run at all on Sundays, which was one of the reasons for walking all the way to Badesse today: I will be able to get back to start walking from the same point tomorrow morning, with a 7-minute train ride from Siena. 

Hopefully, tomorrow I will close the circle!

   

San Rocco a Pilli - Badesse, 25 km

Walking in circles 2

Day two on the Grande Anello di Siena: Isola d'Arbia - San Rocco a Pilli, 15 km

First two days

Took the bus back to Isola d'Arbia and resumed my walk exactly where I left off yesterday. I immediately faced two obstacles: a railway line and a stream. Having located the railway underpass and forded the stream without difficulty - if the water was high it would have meant an extra hour's walk down to the bridge and back on the other side - I found myself once again on a dirt track through the wheat fields of the Crete Senesi.

Bees with a view

After passing by a few uninhabited farmhouses and a row of very much inhabited beehives, the dirt track descended into a small wood and then wound up to the fairytale castle on the hill: Poggio ai Frati: a 12th century fortified complex converted into a farmhouse in modern times, also now abandoned. 

Here I stopped for a snack before descending to a paved road and then turning onto the gravel road towards Mugnano. Climbing up to this cluster of houses, the road became paved, before dropping down again to an overpass crossing the Siena-Grosseto highway. From here I had to walk all the way up the ridge of Fogliano only to make a u-turn and walk back down the facing ridge to San Rocco a Pilli, my destination for the evening. This was the least pleasant part of the walk as it was on a paved road with no sidewalk; it is not actually a part of the ring walk, unless you need to access the town of San Rocco to access food and accommodations. For the route that skips the town, refer to this track on Google Maps. 

My reward for walking into San Rocco at the end of the day was not only an ice cream at the local bar but an evening of yoga and meditation to the sound of gongs and Tibetan bowls with my new friends Bianca and Carlo of Kalpa Taru yoga, who played an important role in getting me through the strictest phase of the lockdown in sound mental and physical condition. I finally met them in person and was able to confirm that they actually exist in real life, and not just on a screen, and we had a good-sized group spread out with appropriate distancing over the vast lawn of the villa that is home to Tuscany Training Camp, a training centre for runners from all over the world. 

The perfect ending to a day on the trail! 

Walking in circles 1

2020: Not a good year for travelling. 

2020: A great year for walking! 

Getting out in the fresh air again, walking a little further every day to get back into shape, after the lockdown and months of physiotherapy exercises to make up for straining a tendon in my foot last year. 

The perfect short Long Walk to start with: Il Grande Anello di Siena. A route that draws a circle around the city of Siena, with a 70 km circumference. My thanks to Enea Desi who published the itinerary, complete with GPS tracks, directions for walking and mountain-biking, and maps, on his website (in Italian), handily divided into 8 segments so you can walk one in half a day, two or even three in a day, depending on your fitness and the time you have available. He also lists accommodations, but as I have a place to stay in Siena, I will be busing out to my starting point every morning and back into town (hopefully!) in the evening. 

I started out this afternoon at his recommended starting point, Taverne d'Arbia. From the bus stop just outside the town, I crossed the bridge over the Arbia, then followed a dirt road along the river bank back in the direction of Siena before heating west and up into the crete - the clay hills of Siena. This 7.5 km segment is extremely scenic, with views of the city of Siena in the distance on one side, and hills covered with fields of golden wheat and bright green alfalfa on the other, dotted with cypress trees. In the distance is Montalcino, and behind it Monte Amiata. You can even see as far as Radicofani, four days' walk to the south, on the road to Rome!

  

Siena, without the tourists

Back on the road again

Shortly after this clump of cypress trees the gravel road led down into the valley, coming out at Isola d'Arbia and the bus stop back into Siena. The whole excursion took only two hours! Tomorrow I will attempt a longer stretch, from Isola d'Arbia to San Rocco a Pilli.

Taverne d'Arbia - Isola d'Arbia 7.5 km