Day 64: Stage 50: Radicofani, 33 km, sun! 24°

What A Volcanic Walk!

Rob and I were both up early this morning, each to go separate ways with the intent of reaching the same destination. It was dark so I had both lights turned on and flashing!

This being Italy, there was a climb right out of town this morning. I was away early enough to watch as the sky began to lighten up.

There’s something very peaceful about walking this time of morning.



A slow steady increase in the light as the sun begins to make an appearance.



I found myself taking all sorts of photos, but hurrying with an intent to be in a position to see the sunrise. Frustratingly trees will get in the way or tall bushes and I’d hurry ahead to the next clearing.

It wasn’t the most brilliant sunrise I’ve ever seen, but in the moment it was pretty nice. It was made even more special by the ground fog in the valley below. They sure know how to do morning fog here!😂









By now I was moving quickly down the backside of the first climb, and just across the valley there appeared to be another mediaeval hill town or two. 



That’s my destination in the far distance on top of an ancient volcanic pipe.

Nice volcano in the background. 



I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this? It seemed environmentally friendly so I decided that it was actually a pretty cool idea. Your garden Caitlin?

This area has quite a few geothermal hot springs and I walked past one of them to have a look. 

It began to dawn on me that I was going to have to climb up the other side of the valley where the small towns that I’d seen earlier sat upon rock outcrops. I was required to cross this bridge so I made a quick decision to jump the fence because the alternative was a very long detour. I figured if it was that bad that they would’ve put a more significant barrier and signage in place to stop the pilgrims. I decided that they really didn’t want cyclists or motorcycles crossing. Anyway, it held. 



And there they were on top of their chunks of stone. It looks like an ancient fortress, and the other town to the left was being restored. 



The sky was having a field day today, clearly enjoying itself. It certainly kept me happy!



Still a long way to go. Radicofani is the highest peak on the right. 







Volcano with ancient lava flows spreading on either side. 

In the low areas there is still a fair bit of mud from the week before, requiring a little bit of maneuvering.







A strange way to move pilgrims under the highway. This would have been quite deep a week ago!



The river has cut away the bank and they are trying to repair it. Heavy storms did this recently. 

Volcano!

Then home tonight was in sight. Just had to climb there🫤

Two beautiful horses and I’ll be sending Saiorse a video of them tomorrow as she celebrates her second birthday! Wow! Her Dad is celebrating his birthday today! Happy birthday Paul! 🎂🥂🍾



Costanza’s look alike cat!

Then I’m in. 

We have a late lunch and rehydrate. 

After lunch we went in search of our Airbnb and immediately had some difficulties finding it. I tried calling, but to no avail. I talked to these two lovely older women and they were really serious about helping us, but they had no idea. I then suck my head inside a window and talked to two women and they found the name of the place. I then miraculously got a phone call back from the owner and from there things settled down, but it took us over an hour to get into our place which is why this blog is late.

This is a sunset tonight from our individual rooms. Actually somewhat better than the sunrise.

So tomorrow is another long stage to Acquapendente. I guess that means we will be up early and have a little bit of food here in our apartment and then we will walk down the street to make sure that Rob gets his coffee! And then we will drop a long way down off the top of this hill. No doubt there will be climbs though.