The Search for Volpaia

I am so exhausted. I may fall asleep righting this, and it's not even 8:00 yet -- and it doesn't even get dark till 9:30!!!! 


The plan for today was to take a bus to a place in the hills and hike to this small medieval town in the same hills, get picked up there and come back.  Sounds simple, yes? Well we got up the hill well enough (and it was beautiful) and were dropped off with minimal motion sickness.  It was nice being away from the constant noise of the city and it was much less humid (even cool) up there. We then hiked along and saw sights like this:

GORGEOUS! Hiking in the hills of Tuscany is pretty breathtaking, I must say.  It felt really good to walk in nature instead of in the city (even though I love the city) -- it was really enlivening.  So then my professor realizes she missed the turnoff for the town, so we end up at this other tiny town (so tiny, most people wouldn't consider it a town) where the lady at the ristorante says it's an 1.5 hour hike to Volpaia, which is where we wanted to go.  Not wanting to get back on a bus, and enjoying the countryside, a few of us said that we'd rather walk.  No one really had objections (and the bus driver didn't actually know where we were) so we set out on our way.  The walk was beautiful, but hiking with 25 people was not an ideal situation.
Here's the trail

And abandoned Farm House

And another view from the trail

So this 1.5 hour hike turned into a 2 hour hike and then a 2.5 hour hike when we finally found a house! But the town was still a little further up.  By this time, everyone was pretty exhausted and grouchy, but I actually loved romping through the nature of the Tuscan hills =) Of course, NOW I'm exhausted. We sat down for a long lunch in this beautiful (and very small) medieval town for an hour or so.

I made friends with the ristorante owner's dog Ombra

Then the bus came, and we had a motion-sickness-inducing ride back. I really dislike long bus trips. Anyways, it was lovely seeing the countryside and it's wonderful being here with a professor who knows the ins and outs of everything, so we could do something like that.  And I thought getting lost was a great adventure! Although, it would have been better in a much smaller group. 


Here are pictures of the view from the town:

I'm going to get ready for bed, I am SO tired! AND we're catching a 7AM bus to Siena.  More on that tomorrow!