Touring the local villages (Friday 16th August 2013)

After yesterday's adventurous day today was a little quieter. We decided to keep it local and visit some of the towns and villages in the local area. We got up for breakfast at 8:00am with every intention of retiring to our penthouse apartment for a bit more rest. While Kerry rested I battled with the slowwwww internet connection, trying to upload photos to the blog of our Vespa adventure. It didn't help that the files were BIG. It took until 12:30pm before I gave up with only 75% of the photos uploaded.

After receiving advice from our host Julien the night before we headed for the village of Citerna. Not far for our accommodation at Il Vigno we crossed the upper reaches of the Tiber River. This is the one upon which Rome was founded way back when. I spent a lot of time learning out the Tiber River in Latin classes also so a photo was required. We wound our way down into the adjacent valley through the towns of Ponte Signerna and Pieve Santo Stefano, and jumped on the autostrada to Sansepolcro. The autostrada was not a toll road, and for good reason. It is not a road anybody could justify charging money to drive on. The road is two quite narrow lanes in both directions. The surface is broken, patched and somewhat undulating. It certainly tested the Fiat's suspension. Generally, the roads we have seen and driven on so far are of way poorer quality than neighbouring France and even Spain.

Sansecropolo is nothing to write home about, so I won't. We drove straight through to Citerna. This a medieval village sitting atop a hill in Tuscany. It's height gave magnifent 360 degree views to the Tiber valley below and the mountains beyond. The village itself is quite small, clean and tidy. It looks like it has a village-wide major renovation recently. We had a coffee and Coke in the only place open in town then drove over to Monterchi, another hill-top, once fortified village.

We wandered up and down the step, alley, tunnels of the town.

I had parked at the top of the village (just a bit illegally) and became concerned when locals started arriving in the square looking for a park to attend their frends's funeral. We hurriedly finished our coffee and scooted of to find a the town of Citta del Castello, just over the border in Umbria. It too is a wall medieval town, quite large in size. The town was very quiet but we eventually found some action around the Cathedral. This is a very large marble church, particularly well appointed, containing some valuable pieces of Renaissance art on the walls on in the aisles. Well worth the price of entry – nothin'.

For those readers in Melbourne and Bendigo here is a photo taken in Umbria. It's call "blue sky". You'll like it when you see it for real.  ;)

 

It was getting late so we started to head home. Although we weren't more than 50-60kms from home it still took an hour to get there. Kilometers seem to go slowly in Italy, not helped by the random placement of distance advisory signs. Numerous times we have seen a sign saying 25kms only to drive a few kms in the direction of the town to see the nexr sign declaring 22kms to go! Frustrating. Anyway, we made it back just before dinner at 8:09pm. I even saw a deer in a ploughed field along the way. Dinner was like Wednesday night with a selection of Tuscan cuisine served in five course followed by nip afterwards.