This morning was time to pack up and check out of the hotel. Garth and I were in contact and we had agreed that I would get a taxi after checking out, go to his hotel to pick him up, and then we would go to the airport to pick up the rental car. A good plan and it worked like clockwork. After getting dropped at the airport we had to take a shuttle bus to the car rental agencies place and join the queue to get the paperwork done.
We had decided to head vaguely south, heading towards our final destination for the day - Montieri in the Maremma region of Tuscany. We started off by heading slightly west towards Livorno and then turned south towards Certaldo in the Chianti region. This took us through some of the country I had travelled both on the bus tour, and to get to the start of the bike tour. On the way we actually travelled along some of the roads that we had cycled yesterday, including to the start of the brutish hill up to San Pancrazio. Since we were there I suggested we drive up to the cafe at the top where we could have a coffee and Garth could see first hand what the hill was like.
At the restaurant we both opted for a Latte Macchiatto which turned out to be quite different from what we expected, but quite nice all the same. We had expected something rather like a normal Macchiatto but this turned out to be a cup full of hot milk with the Macchiatto mixed in with it.
After that we continued to head south through Poggibonsi and then headed more south-westwards again to Colle di Val d'Elsa. There was quite a significant fortification there but we didn't stop and continued heading to Volterra. Volterra has a large fortification and sits on top of a hill. As we approached we also saw another quite impressive rocky hill not far away and, significantly, it did not have a village, monastery, or castle on top of it.
At Volterra we had to park elbow the village and walk up a longish flight of steps to get into the village. We found a place on the main street where we were able to share a Bruschetta, and a Pizza and a half-liter of house red. Very nice.
After Volterra we headed again south-westwards to Saline di Volterra where we turned south to head down through Pomarance, and later on Larderello. At Larderello there is a large power station and, from the large diameter steel ducts which criss-cross the area, appears to be geothermal. Not too much further on we were able to turn eastward again to our final destination for the day - Montieri. The Rifugio we are staying at is on the side of a hill in an area which used to be well known for mining of metalifferous ores but these does is covered with large tracts of trees.
During our drive today we passed through some very scenic countryside, all of it hilly, and ranging from the vine and olive co reed slopes of Chianti to the more regular fields near Volterra Nd then the forested country towards and around Montieri. Apart from the first kilometers closer to Florence, we encountered little traffic on the roads, especially outside the towns, and it was a very pleasant day traveling.
