Tuscany - day 3

On day three, on Sunday, again after big and yummy breakfast with great view, we headed West. We planned to visit only two towns, that were again not on the tourists must-see top lists. First we drove to Certaldo, the home town of the great medieval writer Boccaccio. This is his statue in the newer part of the town, Certaldo Basso, that is in the valley.

The old part of the town, Certaldo Alto, is on the hill and we took the funicular to get there.

This is the view over the funicular tracks to the lower part of the town.

This is the house where Boccaccio lived, now it is a museum. We didn't go in, but we visited the church a bit further down on the same street, where his tomb is.

At the end of the main street there is a big palace with crests of Italian noblemen.

Also other houses were very pretty.

This is the view down the main street towards Boccaccio's house.

The town is walled and there are several gates in the wall.

The views from the wall are stunning...

...we could even see as far as to San Gimignano.

One thing that I found very interesting was that you could see how much all the buildings have been rebuilt and renovated over the centuries, and it is still visible where the doors and windows were in the past.

Around the houses there were lots of flower pots, mostly planted with plants that can endure some hot and dry weather in the summer.

The title of this photo could be: life is hard!

And even in upright position this cat was complaining a lot. But it was so cute.

Two more photos from this lovely town - the old fountain...

...and probably another old fountain, adorned with plants planted in caffettieras.

I really enjoyed Certaldo, it is such a pretty town, also because I love Boccaccio and his works.

Next we drove further towards West and on the way we stopped to make some photos - one looking back to Certaldo Basso in the valley with Certaldo Alto above it on the small hill...

...and one with a closer view of San Gimignano with it's many towers.

But our next destination was further West still - the town of Volterra. There we again found a free parking right under the town walls.

On our way up the stairs to the town we met this cute cat. Almost all Italian cats that we met were very talkative.

Volterra is quite big and it must have been very rich in the past, judging by its many big palaces, churches,...

...and ornate doors and windows.

Looking over the roofs towards West one could almost see the sea.

On the main square there was a rally of older sports cats.

But it almost didn't belong there, in all this history...

...and great architecture.

We couldn't figure out, why there were so many rings mounted on the walls. Some were very pretty, our first guess was they were used for tying horses, but many were mounted too high for that. We even asked around, but got no answer.

At few minutes before three we got a bit cold, tired and hungry, but we knew, it would be difficult to find some cooked food at this hour. Then I noticed a sign on one macelleria that they serve ribollita, a Tuscan bean and kale soup, that I definitely wanted to try. So we stepped in and asked it it was possible to get two plates of ribollita and two glasses of wine, even if it was almost 3. They rolled their eyes a bit, but then said yes. This is where we sat, in a cozy almost cellar like room without the window. When we got the ribollita, we attacked it so quickly that I forgot to make a photo. But it was very delicious and we were really happy we got it.

After a good meal that warmed us up, we continued to explore the town. I saw that there was a Medici fortress a few steps away and we walked there. I was surprised that there was fence all around it, but just thought that they want to make sure people pay entrance fee.  

But then we saw signs that this was a state prison. Well, that's what you do if you need a place for a prison and there are only palaces and fortresses available...

This is the entrance to the town from the East with the Medici fortress or state prison behind it.

Here is another example of how the architecture was changing over the time, new windows and doors emerged and old ones were closed.

Just outside of the town walls we found these pretty flowers,...

...the Broad-leaved anemones (vrtne vetrnice or Anemone hortensis).

On our ride back to our hotel we drove through the town of Colle di Val d'Elsa. We saw that it has an old town center and spontaneously made a stop. The town stretches along the hill...

...and we walked throug the narrow stone streets along pretty old buildings.

There were also several old fountains, this one was from the year of 1372.

The fort at the entrance is called Porta nuova and is from the 14th century. So that's what they call new!

This town was such a nice surprise, it is absolutely pretty and not mentioned in any tourist guide or travel blog. All in all, all three towns were fantastic and a joy to explore.

After a very long and eventful day we drove back to our hotel. We dined in hotel restaurant again, but only some pasta and a glass of their own delicious Chianti. And it was again delicious. And then we made it an early night again.

 

Tuscany - day 2

Next morning started with delicious big breakfast with spectacular view over the Tuscan hills, the restaurant in our hotel was a new building built on top of the stone wine cellar and it had three walls made of glass. What a great start of the day! 

On the evening before we made a plan to first drive through the Chianti region, South of our hotel, and visit couple of smaller villages or towns, to get the feeling for the area, and we deliberately didn't choose the most touristy spots.

The ride alone was already exciting, several times we had to navigate very narrow streets through the villages. But luckily the traffic was very light, there were almost no tourists and not even many locals on the roads.

 

Our first stop was a small walled town of San Donato. It of course sits on the top of the hill.

The narrow stone paved streets and pretty old houses were adorned with lots of flowers.

But apart from few locals it was almost empty.

Surprisingly was the church outside of the village a bit down on the hill...

...and in front of it was the carpet of small daisies.

Our next stop was the village of Castellina in Chianti. It is a pretty town, not as spectacular as many others, but we had a nice walk through it. There were plenty of old houses, churches...

...and palaces to be seen.

Then we drove to  Monteriggioni, another walled town on the top of the hill with very high defence walls. This was the only town mentioned in tourist guides of the ones we visited this day, and as such it was more crowded and the only one where we had to pay for parking.

But it looked very pretty...

...and there was lots to see, like this old fountain.

From the outside it looked really impenetrable.

While driving to our next stop I had to make a photo of this very typical Tuscan scenery.

On the edge of the forrest we saw this Stinking hellebore (smrdljivi teloh or Helleborus foetidus) and we had to make a stop for the photo.

Our next stop was village of Panzano, I wanted to see the butcher shop or Macelleria Cecchini, that I saw long ago on one of the Jamie Oliver's cooking show. The shop was full of delicious looking things, but we didn't buy anything, we weren't returning home for couple of days yet and it would be difficult to store anything fresh till then. When reading about macelleria I found out they also serve lunches and dinners, but here is the catch: the lunch starts at 12, which is way too early after our big breakfast, and dinner starts at 7 in the evening, which is too late for us to have a big dinner with lots of meat. We usually eat late breakfast and then lunch/dinner combined in late afternoon. And this does absolutely not fit with Italian eating schedule, they eat lunch from 12 -15 and dinner from 7 or even 7.30 in the evening to 10. And in between it is very difficult to find any decent food, especially in rural area. 

While we walked back to our car we noticed that Panzano also has an old centre and decided to take a look. It was up on the hill, of course and the surrounding were very pretty.

Along the way between the old houses we found this pretty and very vocal orange cat.

On top of the hill there was a church...

...guarded by another cat.

Right next to the church there was a small bistro and we were getting a bit tired so we decided to have at least a drink there. Then we saw that they also serve snacks throughout the day, so we ordered a big platter of charcuterie with some pickled vegetables and fresh bread and a glass of Chianti wine each and it was very tasty. And we even managed some desserts after that, Tomaz had a chocolate cake of course, and I had some cantuccini with vinsanto. 

The bistro also had a terrace, but we were sitting inside in the closed part, as the weather was quite cold.

Then we were ready for next adventures. We planned to stop in Radda in Chianti, another pretty old town on the top of the hill, but as we were driving towards it we saw that the surrounding streets were full of people and parked cars and there was no parking to be found. So we decided to pass and drive on. Later we read that there was a running event there and that's why it was so crowded.

So we drove to Montefioralle, only to find that there were tons of people and cars there as well. They were having a Frittelle festival, where they were all, the whole village, frying fritters and selling them for charity. At least we could find the parking and then strolled through the town. But we were too full to eat any fritters.

The town is very pretty...

...I particularly liked this red door.

Then we drove back to the hotel, we were a bit tired and cold and we went to bed early.

To be continued...