It was raining when we woke on Monday,
so we headed for the coast where it is expected to remain hot and sunny for at
least the next fortnight. We had
previously agreed that whenever the weather was likely to be not so good that
we would make for the coast for the day or put on wet weather gear and go for a
walk. Our research had come up with a
dog-friendly beach called Le Marze about 1 ½ hours drive away, just north of
Marina di Grosseto which is a popular tourist destination, especially in the
summer months.
Some of the reviews we had read about
the beach had complained that, from where cars could be parked, there was a 10
to 15-minute walk through the woods to get to the beach. We found this an odd complaint, especially as
the writers would likely to have been dog owners and hence walkers.
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| Le Marze beach, dog-friendly and empty |
The beach was just as we expected from
the reviews, hardly anyone around and plenty of makeshift driftwood shelters to
hang our wet clothes on to dry in the sun.
The weather had completely changed by the time we left the mountains and
were heading in the direction of Rome and we spent a good few hours swimming
and sunbathing. Most unlike us I know
but it was so relaxing; even Buddy just lay there with his head resting on
first one and then the other of us.
Even though Buddy was happy sunbathing
with us, he wasn’t happy about us going in for a swim, so we had to take turns.
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| I was first in when we got there (most unlike me as, unlike me, Karen loves the water) |
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| Buddy not happy that Karen was going in let alone going underwater |
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| Looking south to the town of Marina di Grosseto which can just be seen in the distance |
After leaving the beach we
drove down to the town to find a bar to have a quick drink before driving home. We parked
up and wandered along the beach to select a bar. As we had found in the campsites we had
stayed in on the way down, the vast majority of sunbathers were German. Not fancying hiring sunbeds, we sat in a bar
and were hosted by a friendly Italian who was really taken with Buddy and
thought it was really funny that his kittens were making Buddy so alert. They were really cheeky and wouldn’t move
from the chair they were curled up in which wound Buddy up as cats tend to
scarper when he’s around.
The car parks in the resort were all virtually empty, no doubt they would have been packed a month ago before the school holidays finished:
We have noticed Facebook
status updates are showing people are finishing their summer boating and
resting up their boats for the winter.
Clive and Jenny, who we cruised and socialised with earlier this summer
did just that on Monday and are now on their way back to Magnetic Island in
Australia where they live during our winter.
Also, our Kiwi friends, Chris and Aileen left their boat and went home
to New Zealand this week.
We know that when we get
back home to the boat at the end of October that the first couple of days will
be a little fraught. When we left, it
was the height of summer, and the boat was looking really colourful and alive
with all the pot plants. It’s going to
be a sorry sight when we get back, with a lot of tidying up to do on the roof ☹ It’s also going to be a shock as I suspect it
will stove time every day too.
After Monday’s rain,
Tuesday was a lot cooler and, as it was a ‘no do day’ we just went for a walk
through the woods on Monte Amiata. The path was well marked with red and white
strips of paint on trees and rocks along the way:
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| Buddy was happy in the shade of the trees without the sun blazing down on him |
The path wound its way
around the hillside and for most of the way was sheltered by large cliffs which
were quite uncanny seeing them through the trees:
We came across a door into
some rocks at one point but couldn’t get in let alone work out what it led to:
By the time we got home the
clouds had cleared and the sun was out, so we were able to sit outside for the
evening as usual.
The weather was back to
normal on Wednesday and we took ourselves off to Castel del Piano which isn’t too
far away but had a market advertised for the first Wednesday of every month.
It turned out to be mainly
a clothes, shoes and material type market and not the French type of fruit and
veg market we were looking for. Talking
to Luca, our host, he explained that that is what the country markets are like
in Tuscany and there are not many like the southern French ones.
We felt quite conspicuous
as all the locals were in long trousers and many were also wearing coats; as I
said the other day, now the temperatures have dropped below 30 degrees they
think summer is over ☹
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| Locals in autumnal-wear… |
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| …whereas we, having a lunch time beer, were in shorts and tee-shirts – even Buddy is flat out |
On our way into town we
had noticed many of the buildings had flags hanging out over the streets.
These flags are hung out as part of the
celebrations for the town’s annual horse race (palio).
The palios in Tuscany are over for the year
and, although the one in Castel del Piano is meant to have been in existence
the longest, the ones in Siena are the famous ones.
For those of you who remember Tony Blair,
(the Italian press called him the Prime Minister with Bambi eyes amongst other things), he was
responsible for bringing the Siena palio to the world’s attention twenty years
ago.
He used to take one of his annual family
holidays in Tuscany and was pulled apart by the British press when he was photographed
at the Siena palio in, I believe, 1997.
It was particularly
bloody that year with several horses having to be killed.
Coincidentally I took an extra dislike to Tony Blair at the time but for different reasons. We were on holiday with friends and their families in a villa near San Gimignano which was where the Blair's were staying (in a much grander place than ours of course). On our way back from a trip one day we passed a lovely looking restaurant and thought we would visit that evening. Mirella, the Italian speaker, in our party, went in to make a booking only to be told it would be closed as the Blair party were going to be dining there!
I had a couple of documents
to print out, sign, get witnessed and sent off to the UK. The tobacconist by the bar we were sitting in
offered this service (except the stamps bit) so we took advantage of that and
also bought a couple of envelopes from him. It took a while in our broken English/Italian for him to work out that I wanted to print something from my phone.
When we were sitting at
the bar we noticed a narrow passage up the side and saw that it led further up
the hill. We suddenly realised that as
we were in yet another hill town, that the oldest part would be at the top, so
after our drinks we went for a wander around.
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| Alley leading up to the medieval part of town |
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| The old public wash house on the right |
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| The view from the top |
And, to finish off today’s
blog update, a rather miserable looking dog:
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