Pescina (wolves, cicadas, bells and dogs)

As on most farms in this area, the farmer we are renting our cottage from, grows walnuts, sweet chestnuts, apples, grapes and olives.  The vines and olive trees must be a particularly hardy variety as the area gets snow in the winter – hence the ski slopes up the road from us.

It seems our farmer doesn’t have to do a lot other than watch his crops grow and arrange for the harvesting to be carried out at the appropriate time of year.  All the produce is then sent to cooperatives for centralised food production.  The sweet chestnuts are from the Amiato chestnut tree and are used for making flour.  The grapes are used to make the local Montecucco wines – I’ve never heard of them but am doing my best to try them all 😉

We were looking for butterflies on Saturday and saw an old Fiat parked under a tree and then we heard rustling in the tree.  It was our farmer in an apple tree collecting the fruit.  We have noticed many ladders in the orchards and they all look handmade and incredibly unsafe, but he seemed quite at home at the top of it.

Apple picking in one of our butterfly meadows

Young walnut and sweet chestnut trees in another one of the meadows

Saturday was one of our ‘do nothing’ days which really means not using the car.  After a late lunch we walked the two miles down to Pescina.  That doesn’t sound arduous, but the road is very steep, so we weren’t really looking forward to the climb back; however, after a trip to the bar it didn’t seem so bad after all and we agreed that we would happily do it again.

When we went through Pescina when we arrived a few days ago we found it strange that, even though it is a small village, it has three restaurants and three or four apartment blocks, all of which are shuttered up.  What we have now realised is that the place must be packed in the winter and the apartments are ski apartments.  We have also noticed that there are chalets hidden in the woods and that they look like traditional Alpine ski chalets rather than Tuscan houses.  It must be a great weekend getaway for people who live in places like Rome (I hesitate to say Romans) who own a second home here as they can have a weekend skiing in the winter or just lazing around in the summer.

Admittedly it won’t be like having a chalet in the Alps but it’s a lot closer to the mountains than if you live in places like Paris or Milan. 

Some of the butterflies we saw on Saturday, clockwise from top left: pale clouded yellow, Queen of Spain fritillary, common blue, Glanville fritillary

I finally got a picture of a clouded yellow (the one above is a pale clouded yellow) but it was out of focus so not included here. I also saw my first ever nettle tree butterflies; what a great name.

Even though the house is rustic, there are a lot of what we call modern arty pictures around that we don’t quite understand.

Whenever we see this type of art we always think we could do it ourselves

Everywhere we have stayed whilst we have been away we have been in the range of bells and barking dogs.  All the way through France it seemed every village church sounds the hour every hour from seven in the morning until ten at night.  We thought it was funny in Bélâbre as the clock was running seven minutes late, so we had an extra few minutes of silence in the mornings.

Howling dogs have been another phenomenon, we seem to have heard them every night wherever we have stayed.  Fortunately, they don’t disturb Buddy or encourage him to join in.  Sometimes it’s just the odd one or two dogs communicating and sometimes it sounds like a whole pack of hunting dogs.

We haven’t escaped it here in Pescina, but being so high up from the village, we have to strain to hear the bells from Seggiano and have only heard the occasional dog.  We are still hearing cicadas even though summer is nearing its end.  At least they are not as loud as they are in the height of summer and their noise is now a muted, peaceful and pleasing sound.

Looking down on Seggiano from where we can just here the church bell – ironically, a hill town

As we are living on the slopes of Monte Amiato we thought we would visit the summit, so that’s what we did on Sunday afternoon.  Despite extensive searches (physically and electronically) we couldn’t find any paths so ended up doing the same as all the other tourists and driving practically to the top.  Yes, we could have walked up the road, but it wouldn’t have been much fun and as its narrow and full of hairpins it would have been dangerous.  The only sign of trails we could find were all reserved for mountain bikers.

Whilst researching for footpaths I did find that this area is one of the parts of Italy inhabited by wolves, but we haven’t come across any signs of them yet.  I have seen porcupines in this area before but no such luck so far.  Mind you, we wouldn’t want Buddy to come face to face or face to bottom with a porcupine ☹ 

A green/blue piste runs down from the summit to a large car park and made for an easy walk up.

The piste is paved to help people walk up to the summit in the summer

There are two chair lifts and 12 drag lifts so it’s hardly a resort that will set the ski world alight.  Both chair lifts were in use and disgorging a constant stream of mountain bikers at the top.

Mountain bikers alighting from one of the chair lifts

The summit marker which isn’t at the highest point…

…this was the highest point

Looking towards Rome but we were above the clouds so couldn’t see much

The piste map – not much competition for the likes of Les Trois Vallées 😉

Dotted around the grounds of the house are many demijohns which are traditionally used for wine and olive oil. I mention these because I came across an American website the other day selling ‘genuine’ European artefacts where demijohns, without baskets, were advertised at $255 each!

    

Our Sunday evening view – the clouds looked like tree covered hills at first glance