First day at Montieri after a good nights sleep. Last night we had a pre-ordered dinner at the Rifugio. I had just a serving of Lasagna as a first course only due to having had a largish lunch of Bruschetta and Pizza. Garth had gnocchi followed by Cinghiale (wild boar) with Polenta, and a Panecotta for dessert.
This morning, a continental breakfast saw us fueled up and ready to go. We had decided to explore by firstly heading west and south-west to Follonica on the Ligurian Sea coast. Driving down through the tight windy roads was reminiscent of driving in some rural areas of New Zealand where the joke was always that the surveyors were paid by the mile so put as many wrists and turns Into the road as possible.
Follonica is a pleasant coastal town with many camping and holiday areas, and marinas filled with expensive looking boats. Just south of Follonica we stopped near the top of a small hill where the road was close to the sea so that we could have a look across to the island of Elba, famous as the place where Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled to. It was a brilliant, sunny day and the island was clearly visible, perhaps 20km away. The Bay of Follonica was fairly flat sea but a breeze was rippling the water beyond the bay. A ferry service operates to several different points on the island from Piombino at the northern end of the bay.
After following the road down the coast from Follonica we headed for Grosseto, which we didn't really want to enter but needed to get through so that we could pick up a road heading towards Scansano and then Pitigliano. We got a bit hung up in Grosseto, but after a bit of winding through its one way system, we managed to find the correct road heading south by east and continued our journey. Of course we could have used the GPS to help but that would have been a bit of overkill for the purpose, and also removes the possibilities of chance happenings that might lead you by the wrong road but give you a chance to see something that you might have otherwise missed.
We arrived in Pitigliano close to midday but not before having an incident along the way. I was driving and as I was driving across a narrowish bridge I noticed that the left hand bend at the far end was a bit of a slow one so I changed down to slow a little. Right then a fecking eejit coming the other way overcooked the (for him) right-hander and strayed onto my side of the road. An instinctive twitch away to avoid collision caused me to scrape the right-hand side of the car on the W-Beam guard rail at the side of the bridge. We stopped when possible to have a look and it didn't look too bad - mostly stuff deposited on top of the paint that could possibly be buffed off but will probably cost the accident excess on the rental. Grrh!
Pitigliano is a (once) fortified hilltop town which has roots going back to the Etruscans whose caves can be seen down in the valley. After driving through and back and then parking the car we walked through the town looking for somewhere that would serve a light lunch and also have a restroom available. In the end we settled for an espresso coffee in a restaurant where the guy would dearly have liked us to have a pizza but got to use the restroom anyway.
After Pitigliano we drove north to Sorano which is another fortified hill town and also has an Etruscan history. Again we couldn't find anywhere to get a light snack but took the opportunity to refuel the car at a self-service station. This required us to figure out how it all worked but all was successful and we got our €30 of diesel and then set of north again through Elmo (tickle me), Selva, and Santa Fiora. We were really just navigating from one place to another to make progress towards 'home' in a timely manner. Along the way we passed by, and through, many picturesque villages and towns on some fairly narrow and twisty roads.
After Santa Fiora we went through Arcidosso where we stopped to visit a Conad Supermarket and pick up some supplies, including a sandwich for me to stop me from getting a blood-sugar low. Then it was on through Paganico, Roccastrada, Sassofortino, Roccatederighi before we picked up the road we had come down from Montieri on in the morning. Then an easy run up to Montieri on the home straight - which it was definitely not.
