Day 59: Stage 47: Siena, 34 km, sun all day! 22°

Golden Hour In Italia!

I had planned to leave earlier this morning, but the little place where I got breakfast didn’t open until 7 o’clock. It was the best decision I made all day.

This morning I came outside to find the streets drying up and blue sky everywhere.. Thank you! There was also a huge shortage of tourists in the streets. Thank you!

As I was leaving the old gates I look towards the sun and I was stunned by what I saw.





It was golden hour at its best! The fog had drifted in up against the side of the hills and the result was basically beyond words.

I had a long day in front of me, but I must say, for that first hour I lingered. The opportunity to practice photography and just take it all in was too much to pass up. 

It was wonderful to see the city light up.

There were also little islands in the clouds.

Every time I started to press forward I’d come up against another scene that just said to me, please take my picture.

So I did. Too many times.😂



Even the spiderwebs were particularly photographic today.



As I was beginning to pick up speed again I came across a vineyard where they were actually harvesting. The mud I was walking through coupled with the fresh grapes brought me to a standstill! Yes, in some areas it was muddy today. Slippery, grab your boot mud. I don’t have much tread left where it counts, so there was some slippage going on. 

But the grapes! I had to confirm that they were ready to pick. They were.





Olive trees in the fog.



After all the heavy rain during the past several days a number of the streams were swollen and had to be forded. I meant four Norwegians later in the day and they told me they took their boots off and carefully crossed. I didn’t really have that sort of time today so I just counted on my boots to keep my feet dry. They did pretty well as nothing got in!

Being the weekend, the hunters and their dogs were out in force. I kept my red pack cover on knowing that they would be out there in the woods…shooting stuff. I saw quite a few deer earlier in the day, but I kept their locations secret. I’ll take that knowledge to the grave!

I had planned on a variant to Val d’Elsa and actually posted a waypoint on my map app. Somehow walking through all the mud I guess I missed the turn, and the signage that was supposed to be there wasn’t. So I worked my way along a little trail and through someone’s farm and basically cut up to a highway. I figured out that it would lead me to a point on the variant. Most of the drivers on the highway were pretty accommodating today. They must’ve been in a good mood because it was the weekend! The good thing was that I was clearly out of the mud, and I made good use of the situation. 

I eventually made it into the old town which was pretty cool.

I was surprised at how quiet it was.



I had read that there was an elevator to take you from the old town down to the ‘new’ town. This is looking down into the new town, which looks pretty old to me!

So I was forced to hike down, but ‘forced’ is a meaningless word in this case. It was a very nice walk.



I had also planned to walk a variant of the variant. There’s a deep river gorge that runs down the east side of the city for almost 4 km.

A few things that I wasn’t counting on though. Firstly, the turquoise water that runs through this canyon was today brown from all of the runoff. Secondly, there was lots of mud through the valley and in places I had to scramble over trees that had slid down the canyon side as a result of all the extra rain. And lastly, the water was much higher and moving a whole lot quicker after all the rain.

I was stopped by a sort of park ranger who looked at me and wanted to see my boots. He said I looked fit enough to do this today (no kidding) and that my boots seemed sturdy (he neglected to check the bottoms). “You should be ok”. At this point I’m starting to wonder what I’ve got myself into? This. Five different crossings! 

But I made it. There were many beautiful little falls the length of the river.







It was nice enough, but if the water had been turquoise it would’ve been spectacular!

After leaving the Gorge I ended up on some nice gravel roads that are good for making time. I came around the corner and saw a small herd of pilgrims.

I caught up to them and they explained that they were from Norway, which was cool, and they were just walking for a week. I needed to press on because I had lots on the go today, so I said bon Cammino and waved goodbye. 

It never fails to amaze me just how far one can walk in a day. This is looking back, and in the far distance you can see San Gimignano, about 25 km behind me. 

We walkers had to put up with a lot of this today. There’s always a way around, or at least most of the time, but it always takes time to work your way around some of these spots.

And in the distance I started to see the medieval walled city of Monteriggioni. Of course it was at the top of a steep hill!

You might recall that this is the place where the Parish priest cancelled my reservation without explanation. 

On the side of the road there was a reminder that I’m making my way slowly, but surely to Rome.

The city looks amazing from a distance! You can imagine that in its day it was a centre for commerce and military control of the area.

Except for this beautiful little church, that’s where the magic ended for me.

Thinking about it, I believe the priest actually ended up doing me a favour. The town is very touristed and I would not have enjoyed spending the night here. Sometimes things happen for a reason.

In a different frame of mind I walked out of the fortress and began figuring out the best way to get to Siena. The little bus stop down by the autostrada proved to be a bust as there were no buses on Saturdays or Sundays. There was nothing left for me to do but to walk to the nearest town that had a train station. So I did. 

I needed to get to Siena today to meet my good friend Rob who had arrived to walk the last two weeks into Rome with me. Here he is walking towards our hotel after having just flown from Toronto. You might remember Rob from our 2016 walk together in Spain since dubbed, In Search of Rob’s Morning Coffee. I promise to do better this time😂

After a great dinner out we went for a little walk and now we are back in our room. Rob is dead asleep after having drifted off at least a half a dozen times. He’ll start to find his legs tomorrow, but we have two full days here before we walk on.

And now you know why this post is late and why I had to get here today. This looks like a great city to have some fun in, and we will do our best to satisfy that task! More tomorrow.