BAC Green Roads Of Tuscany 2009

Radicofani from Afar

Another day, another beautiful ride. Today’s loop went out to Radicofani, a small hilltop village. Julie had been talking about going to this village ever since our Umbria trip. She kept pointing out a flat mountain with a castle on top of it in the distance. So we rode up to it today. The climb was gentle and not very long – almost like Tunnel Road in Berkeley.

Radicofani Piazza Teatro

When we got to the top, some of us walked or rode through the village. The main street was vertical. It and the side streets were old, well-maintained and charming. I bought a hand-made panino at a small store in the Piazza Teatro. It was fresh bread with salami and pecarino cheese and a little olive oil. I ate it on the walk down to the village gate where our group congregated. I noticed that Julie was drinking juice made of oranges, lemons and carrots. I bought one, too, and it was very tasty. I poured half of it into my water bottle for the trip back to our hotel.

Five of us started the route back – Claudia, Julie, Barry, Neal and me. We had a nice downhill. Then we turned onto a dirt road for 5-6K. It was not as bad as the dirt road yesterday. It was smoother and had short stretches of pavement. This first section after Radicofani was on a ridge top, so we had great vista of the countryside on both sides of us.

Once we got onto permanent pavement, we had more downhill, a flat section of several kilometers and then a hot climb back to our Hotel Palazzuolo in San Quirico d'Orcia. I got back around 2:00.

After I cleaned up, I went to the hotel’s terrace and drank a beer with Mike. I took along my mix of salted peanuts and M&M’s to snack on. After that, I relaxed in my room and watched the end of the day’s Giro d’Italia time trial.

Happy Hour al Fresco

Happy Hour was on the lawn next to the pool. We had a some extra treats today brought to the party by people on our tour. Stacie and Alan brought two kinds of pecarino cheese – one plain and one with peppers. Howard and Martha brought a melon and some chips. All of these were very tasty.

I had dinner tonight at a pizzeria with Tom, Julie and Jerry. Pizzerias in Italy have other food besides pizza. I had a mixed salad and pici pasta with olive oil, pecarino cheese and pepper. It was very good. We followed dinner with gelato at a bar behind the Coop (grocery store). We sat in the midst of a large group of local Italian men who were either playing cards or kibitzing the card players.