Photos of our Fabulous Adventure
11km with 120M of ascent
Walter promptly arrives just before 9am, cheerful as ever and we are off on time. We are heading south to the castle keep of Tentennano, locally known as Rocca D’Orcia.
I am on the easier walk with 11 others today and we start with a circuit of the beautiful village of Castiglioneiglione D’Orcia before walking through Rocca D’Orcia.
Rocca d’Orcia is a typical medieval town: stone arches and a large old cistern with Tintinnano Fortress watching over it. For about two centuries the Rocca di Tentennano (Titinianum) was the small “capital” of the Val d’Orcia but above all the strategic control center on the Via Francigena , the famous medieval road that united Rome with northern Italy and France. Anyone who went to Rome (or came), pilgrim , ambassador , nobleman , cleric , armed or disarmed, passed through the Val d’Orcia, under the watchful eye of the lords of the Rocca, high and impregnable. It changed hands several times. Legend has it that it never fell through force, but due to traitors who opened the gates at night. In 1207 in the Borgo, for the first time in Europe a charter was issued to define the duties and rights of the people toward their lords: Charta Libertatis. Documents and myth point to the fact that Saint Catherine of Siena stayed here in 1367, receiving the divine gift of writing as an illiterate right here.
We leave the village and pick up a beautiful stretch of the Via Francigena, some of it on gravel roadways and some on paths. Although threatening to rain, we manage to arrive at our pick up stop before it pelts down. The clouds are very welcome as we walk, as it is another hot day at around 28C. The views along the ridges are absolutely stunning with every turn of the head, such a magical place.
We stop at a lovely rest place. A local farmer has set up picnic tables and benches, along with a cold water spout for peregrinos (pilgrims) to rest. We welcome the chance to sit on benches in the shade and refill our water bottles, some even wet their hats and put them back on to cool off. A great little break.
Time to complete the balance of our trek before those threatening clouds do open up, we hear rumbles of thunder in the distance. Hope the folks on the harder hike (they looped the other direction) are faring well and not getting soaked. All is going well until we hear a horn blaring in the distance and coming at us at breakneck speed. I think we were all stunned as generally people slow right down to pass hikers. Some of us scrambled up the slight bank and we all turned our backs to the gravel that was being churned up by his tires. He drove by at a stunning speed and had another car in pursuit. A large rock hit Doris’ pole (thankfully not her) and a smaller rock hit Marcia in the back. What a scare, we were all speculating, was the first car a criminal and the second a ghost police car? Or was someone in the first car badly injured and they were rushing to hospital. In Italy they would say we had an incidente (pronounced ‘inshedente’) and it was a scary one at that. If either car would have lost control we would have been hit and may be rushing to a hospital as well! Luck was on our side and no one was hurt, and we were all very cautious for the balance of the walk. A short while later we did see the second car again and the driver was angrily speaking on his phone and looked like he was looking for the first car. I suspect they were unsavoury folks (there were 4 men in the lead car) and we were just happy they were gone.
Not too much later we come to Gallina on the 43rd parallel and stop at our pick up point, the IL Parallelo bar/cafe. We arranged ourselves around a few tables, ordered our beverages and as soon as they arrived a clap of thunder sounded and the heavens opened. Whew, that was good timing! The roof of the patio was grape vines so we scrambled into the actual cafe and happily drank our berates until Marcello appeared with the bus.
We drove back to Rocca D’Orcia to meet up with the harder walkers. Unfortunately they did get soaking wet as they were just that much further west where the heavens opened. They all seemed in high spirits nonetheless.
Back to the hotel early, which was fabulous, as we have the dreaded packing of the suitcases. I think we are all quite sad to leave this idyllic place and the camaraderie of the group.
Packing done, most of us gather in the Terazza and imbibe in our last Tuscan happy hour. At 7pm we take a group photo of the entire gang in the pool area with our Breakaways jackets. They look fabulous! Following our ‘photo shoot’ we present Bill and Deirdre with a token of our appreciation, and follow up with a lovely dinner. It really has been a fun week!