The Tuscan landscape is like the ideal countryside to me. It has attractive farms, alternating olive groves and vineyards, on gently inclining hillsides. There is a significant amount of forested areas between farms. They have beautiful forests, a mixture of evergreens and deciduous, many wildflowers, and the strange thin cypresses scattered around. The climate is generally dry, rendering the soil dusty, but can’t be too dry due to the lush forests. It’s certainly not as dry as the Pyrenees. There are tons of lizards that dart across the road/path and away from moving feet. As we walk, we hear almost constant rustling in the leaves and plants next to us. We’ve seen a couple of snakes also.
We’ve made an effort to eat local food in Tuscany like we did on the French coast. We’ve tried a few baked goods that we have only seen in Italy and didn’t see in French bakeries. Italians and French both seem to like almonds a lot in their sweets, but their bakeries are pretty different. We had a local Sienese pastry that is oblong with large cracks in it, slightly yellow and covered with white flour. It’s eggy and chewy on the inside with a slight lemon-twinge. It was okay. We tried more flavors of gelato; it’s amazing that they can make ice cream have genuine flavors. The yogurt really tastes like natural plain yogurt, and the mango is like mango puree with a very sticky, gooey ice cream consistency. I bought passion fruit tic-tacs, very good. We have yet to try lasagna!
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Today started off pretty slowly again, we had breakfast outside and got ready for a hike by 1100. We decided to go on a hike listed on the new map that went out the south end of town and made a loop around a valley of about 8 km. Down on a road that offered a great view of San Gimignano, we turned right on what we thought was the trail but ended up in the middle of an olive grove after 15-20 minutes. We back tracked to the road, went a little further, and found the real trail we were looking for, which was basically a gravel road. The road went down to the bottom of the valley where it turned into a regular trail just before crossing a stream. Down there it was very cool and moist, a far cry from the rest of the area. There was a large rock conveniently laced on the trail that we sat on for lunch. I didn’t want to leave because the cool temperature combined with the fuzzy stuff floating in the air (it is apparently the seed of a tree) and the cuckoo bird signing made it a very peaceful place. Eventually we hauled it up the other side of the valley to a castle converted to an agritourismo business. It was a very pleasant walk up a gravel road that ran through vineyard after vineyard. After the castle, the trail followed a one lane road back down into the valley floor, across the stream, and through some fallow fields filled with the most wonderful, soft looking grass. There were also many great views of San Gimignano along the way. Back in town, we went to the tourist office to ask about the Co-Op grocery store, which turned out to be 100’ off of the road we walked on into town. We found it and stuffed the backpack and a plastic bag with about 30 EUR worth of food for the next few days and then went home. We made dinner of rice with some strip beef and asparagus as quickly as possible! We said goodbye to our Canadian friends because they are leaving tomorrow.
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