Day 9: San Quirico d'Orcia

A very dreary morning in San Quirico d'Orcia–very cool and overcast and a definite threat of rain. The first order of business after breakfast is to get the broken computer (it hasn't healed itself overnight) to the computer repair person in Castiglione d'Orcia.

Castiglione d'Orcia sits on the next hill over from San Quirico d'Orcia and it is visible–along with its sister village–Rocca d'Orcia–from almost everywhere in the Val d'Orcia. (The Orcia river, which we cross, hardly seems substantial enough to have made this enormous, beautiful valley - the Val d'Orcia - which we are criss-crossing every day). When we can't find a parking space in the town parking lot, we are able to drive right to the historic center and park a few steps from the door of the shop.

Unfortunately the shop is closed but we call the cell phone number written on the door and struggle through an Italian conversation with Giulio di Chiara. We find out that he is out of town but will be back in the afternoon and tells us to come back at 4 pm. We start to walk around the town–through the old piazza "La Vecchieta" with its well, the town hall and the original brick and stone cobblestone designs from the 15th century.

Our visit is cut short when it starts to rain so we decide that the best course of action is to head for Montalcino and wait out the rain in the art museum. Our plan is slightly complicated by the fact that Friday is market day in town and a number of streets are closed off as is the big parking lot near the Fortezza. We make our way through the heart of town–following a van making deliveries–and find ourselves driving right past the museum. We find a place to park a few blocks away and walk back to the museum.

The museum is in an old church that was renovated several years ago with a grant from the EU. We are the only visitors in the museum and we spend more than an hour working our way through the development of the Siena painting school starting with a 12th century painted cross from the Abbey of Sant'Antimo. We also are taken with a collection of local pottery dating back to the 15th century, a number of madonna and bambino pictures, a very fine della Robbia altarpiece, a very anguished wooden crucifixion and some major painted altarpieces that were taken from local churches.

In addition to the art, the museum has a particularly well done archaelogy section devoted to the Etruscan presence in the area. It is an informative display that combines well translated text, reconstructions and illustrations as well as examples of finds from local excavations.

We wait a bit in the glass covered cloister–very handy on a rainy day–

for the rain to subside before we walk back to the car and go back to San Quirico d'Orcia. We have lunch in the apartment and hang out until it's time to go back to Castiglione d'Orcia to meet the repair person. After he tries a couple of unsuccessful quick fixes, he says that we will have to leave the laptop with him overnight.

When we are leaving town, the sun appears to be shining over the valley near Pienza so we decide to "follow the sun". We take one of the "strada bianca" that goes through the countryside from San Quirico d'Orcia to Pienza and we enjoy the ride. Driving on the white roads puts you in closer proximity to the hillsides, the crops and the flowers and provides a different perspective on the landscape than from the main roads.

As we are approaching Pienza, I get a call from Anna Sagaria, a local guide who manages the one of the rental properties that I had found on the internet. She tells us that she could show it to us if we were available in the next half hour. The apartment is located just outside San Quirico d'Orcia in a modern sub-division and while it is well equipped and pretty spacious, we don't think it will appeal to a typical vacationer who usually prefers a place either in the center of town or in the countryside.

But we do hit if off with Anna, who is very charming and friendly. She takes us to her own apartment that she is trying to sell or rent which is right in the middle of town, just over the bakery where we get our morning rolls. She is looking for advice about how to market the apartment and we try to tell her what she might have to make it more appealing to Americans…..spruce it up, put in more comfortable furniture, add more light, etc.

We go back to the apartment and it starts raining a bit, then the sun comes out. Diana says there's probably a rainbow and so I go out to look. Sure enough there is…..and a very striking one.

Someone tells us later that rainbows are a common occurence in the area…..but this one is quite impressive to us.

We have dinner at del Gallo, the closest restaurant to the apartment. The waiter seems a bit odd and inefficient….but the food ends up being quite good. We both have the pappardelle with wild boar sauce which comes out a bit like a tasty beef stew. I have a very good grilled sausages and Diana goes for her annual bistecca fiorentina experience…which is very good but much too big. The wine is very good–an Orcia rosso from a vineyard just two miles down the road, Sampieri-del Fa.

On our brief walk home, there are stars in the sky–hopefully a good omen for the weather and my computer.

ADDENDUM: About finally seeing a real deer after admiring the graceful Italian deer traffic signs.

And here are the wildflowers that Diana picked on one of our drives.