The west coast of Italy has fingers of mountains coming down to the sea. (Maybe the east coast does too, but we haven't been there yet.) The engineering policy for the autostrada was to build the road right through these, more or less straight, more or less level. It's not so noticeable when you're driving along going through tunnel after tunnel. We really saw it when stopped off the highway to go down to dabble our toes in the Ligurian Sea at Deiva Marina. (Cameras were packed away, so this visit was unrecorded.) As we climbed back to the highway, we could see the high bridges of the autostrada between the tunnels through the mountain.
On the third day, we reached Casole d'Elsa where we finished paying for our two-week stay and got directions to San Regolino, our "villa" in near-by Radicondoli (in the province of Siena). We stopped at the small grocery store in Radicondoli, then made our way to San Regolino on the edge of town. This is the top of the road down. (You can see a video of the drive down the path to the house here; a 360-degree panorama from the terrace is here.)
We stayed two weeks at San Regolino. The first week and a bit was gray, cool, and sometimes rainy. Towards the end of our stay, it got sunny and a bit warmer. It was surprisingly humid, so that clothes we washed took several days to dry. We used the second bedroom as our drying room, with a fan blowing on clothes hanging on a rack and in the open closet.
We stayed around the house a lot, reading, taking small walks with Pogo, doing little projects. When we went out, we explored our closest towns, Radicondoli, Mensano, and Casole d'Elsa.
One of our favorite streets in Radicondoli was this alleyway ...
Hung at one end of the street were sculptures made of discarded bits of things, especially plastic bottles.
Similar objects could also be found in a nearby gallery. We smiled, but weren't tempted to buy anything,
All the towns in the area are very old and the buildings have been used and re-used and adapted to suit whatever need was current. It was interesting to see the remains of old windows and entries in the buildings.
Building materials were reused, recovered from old churches, Roman buildings, whatever was around.
This is the Collegiate Church in Radicondoli, built in the early 13C.
Our favorite bit of the interior this pulpit.
Roads all over the area were in terrible shape. We saw many instances were the downhill side of roads had collapsed. This example near Radicondoli was about the worst we came across. (This road was closed. We parked at the barricade and walked)
Collapsed roads are apparently such a common occurrence that the problem merits its own road sign.
The view looking back towards Radicondoli from the collapsed road.
The gate to the cemetery in Radicondoli.
Geothermal power is becoming a major source of energy in Italy, particularly in Tuscany. The puffs of white smoke you can see in the distance here (there are three, the leftmost is barely visible) are from geothermal plants.
We were surprised to find that Italy is very involved with recyling. Each home has bins for paper (yellow), compostable stuff (brown), and glass (green). Black bins are for everything else. We were surprised we had to carry out own garbage up the hill as we left. Here is Ed stuffing the bins.
The town of Casole d'Elsa was full of statues. Here are Ed and Pogo waiting their turn in an alley.
And statues on a square in front of a school.
Between Radicondoli and Casole d'Elsa is the town of Mensano. Here is Kaye in front of the church.
There was a lovely view over that low stone wall. San Gimignano should have been visible in the distance, but the weather wasn't too cooperative.
Pogo was less interested than we were in the maze in front of the church.
On our last days at San Regolino, the owners (father and daughter) spread nets to collect olives from the trees, fishing out the ones that fell in the pool. Dad has long stick powered by a 12V battery to reach high and shake the olives free. They make about 50 liters of olive oil each year from about 140 trees; this was just for the family. They also make some decent wine from grape vines on the property, which they were happy to sell us.
Two weeks after we arrived, we packed everything in the car and made our way up the hill, ready to do a bit of tourist travel on our way home.
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