Colle di Bal d’Elsa and Volterra Tuscany 

Today I was much happier and really enjoyed my day.

We explored the close by roads and towns today 

Firstly Colle Di Bal d’Esla

It is a walled town on a hill as they all seem to be ! 

This town seemed to be a long street stretching along the hill. The houses and shops were not touristy and I liked this. We saw a bakers shop and had coffee and a pastry there. Very tasty and cheap to buy too. Mine had custard inside and was enormous and delicious.

We walked along the streets a little and explored outside the portal entrance. 

Next we travelled towards Volterra and the scenery is stunning. The sun was shining and it reached 28*c

This is the countryside around Volterra. 

Volterra is well worth a visit. 

It is famous for alabaster work and we saw three shops selling carved alabaster. So pretty and skilful but surprisingly cold to the touch. 

We took many pics and treated ourselves to lunch 

Home made tagliatelle vince had a meat one and I had vegetarian with truffles… so delicious. We shared a salad with it and sat outside with our lunch and drinks in the shade…. Very pleasant. The waitress was nice and there was a lovely atmosphere . 

There was a huge square and narrow streets coming off and ending in portals to the outside of the town walls. The views from up there are stunning, red roofed tiles and stonework. We stayed there for quite a while. The tour buses do not seem to go there and it was much more easy to walk around. I loved it.

It looks like we are having dry hot weather for the next few days as Italy should have 😉

We set off earlier than usual and arrived at the Michael Angelo square way up above the city. Look at the views you get from up there!

The statue of David was revealing 🤣

From here you can walk down through a beautiful rose garden into the city to cross the river and find the sights. ( we came back this way) 

We made the mistake of getting on a local bus which took us further away dropping us off by the railway station and so a long way to walk. (The central part of the city is restricted to locals for travelling through.)

I can’t truthfully say I enjoyed this experience in the centre of the city. Queues to enter the cathedral stretched as far as the eye could see and for me there were too many people milling in front of me all the time. So we took our photos and decided to leg it back up the hill to our car park . (But that’s another story as the heat got to me…. I’ll say no more)

So now we are back in our holiday rental and with thick walls it is cool and I’m recovering slowly 😉)

Today we woke up to rain pouring down but never say die, we pulled on our rain gear and off we went towards Siena.

Siena is south Tuscany and surrounded by the beautiful hills.

The rain had now stopped.

We had located a car park nearest to the cathedral Duomo and joined the queue to enter the car park. To my dismay we were at the base of a cliff like hillside that we would have to climb up! But nevertheless with a stick in my hand and bag and camera we set off up a hill.

To our relief we found there were a series of several steep escalators  ascending the hillside almost to the top. All free no charge ….phew!

At the last elevation we followed signs to the cathedral through a maze of narrow streets. 

The streets had tourists shops and restaurants.

The outside of the building was huge with spectacular towers.

You buy a ticket to go inside the cathedral.

What an amazing place,marbled floors,huge painting’s,magnificence and opulence!

The pulpit was unbelievable I’ll let my photos show you.

We spent a long time in there and afterwards wandered exploring the streets.

Down all the escalators was fun then to the car park.

On our way back to San Gimignano we took the picturesque route via volterra

There are many views to take photos from. We will return to that route on Friday. Meanwhile tomorrow we are getting up early to go to Florence for the day ….wish us luck!

Ps vince cooked our dinner tonight spaghetti Bolognese all brought from uk with us!

We needed a quieter day today so stayed locally. We are on top of a hill looking down on vines and farmland. We can see the many towers of San Gimignano on the top of the next hill in the distance.

We really like Tuscany with its hills and valleys … so picturesque.

After doing our washing( an essential task for today! ) We drove along down and up to the walled old city. 

It seems building towers was a sign of how wealthy you were. The higher the tower the richer you were. 

Here we have a tower attached to the main house and we are in apartments close by.

It is quite a tourist attraction in San Gimignano and we could see why. Americans were bussed in and escorted by guides with flags so you understand what it’s like. The small shops were in plenty and the restaurants were very popular.

We escaped the crowds by following the walls around and away from the main centre. The views were spectacular and the buildings were very architectural.

There was not much sign of Roman but mostly medieval in age. 

We could smell  the smells of leather shops and again the jasmine and the roses. 

There were artists painting here and there and a priest dressed in a dark red and white gown ranting in Italian. 

Now we are back in our rented house and just in time as it started raining and now we have a thunderstorm. 

Lucca and journey to San Gimignano

This morning we went to breakfast in the villa. It was a grand affair! Cakes and scones and pancetta all home baked, followed by meats cheeses omelette and tomatoes lettuce etc fresh squeezed fruit juice coffee and more cakes and cereals. 

The room was huge with a 

Mosaic floor.

The little lady who had prepared it was so sweet and thanked us for eating it! We should have stayed there longer.,..

Next stop to Lucca via the coastal motorway. We weren’t prepared for all the tunnels we travelled through. You don’t see much of the coastline just tunnels🤣

Lucca is very interesting. An ancient Roman town with a wall all around and gateways into the old city. The narrow streets and squares are medieval. Napoleon’s sister had a lot to do with the development and its conservation in later years. 

We wandered around there and had our lunch looked at churches and views.

We saw towers and walked around part of the perimeter . We eventually found our way back to the underground car park with help from google maps! A magical place and well worth a visit. 

Then onto sanGimignamo  for our next 6 nights stay.

It is in beautiful Tuscany rolling hills.

Saturday Travel day

Not a lot to show today as we travelled along the riviera on motorways just stopping at services. 

BUT we are now staying in a villa north of Genoa over night. It is very old and I took some pics to remind myself in the future what it was like! What a shame it is only an overnight stop on the way to Florence 

Friday 15 May

Nimes

We travelled to Nîmes along the minor road and then on motorways .

Our parking was at a market and it was fun looking at all the stalls. I don’t know why but we saw clowns walking up and down! 

To get to the amphitheatre was a 15 min walk. Today was colder and with rain showers.

It was steep climbs in the Arènes (amphitheatre) and I only made it up to the middle tier. Vince went up to the top. He got views over the city.

Next was a ten min walk to the Roman temple maison caree.

We had our usual salad lunch in a pub cafe then found the car again.

Next stop was to Uzes

This ancient medieval town had narrow streets and towers and the most interesting church. I hope my photos show you a bit of what we saw. 

By now it was 5pm and so we headed back to the camargue. What a lovely last day in France!

Aigues Mortes

St-Marie’s-de-la-Mer

We drove up the minor roads through the marshes today up past Arles to Aigues Mortes. Seeing many wading birds and birds of prey. 

I think all the tourists in Provence decided to go to Aigues Mortes today

We eventually parked along a small outer road by someone’s wall 🤪

The whole old town is within a walled city.

You can walk around the ramparts but there was such a queue of people waiting to pay we decided to stroll around the narrow streets and see all the many small shops. (It reminded us of concarneau but bigger)

There was such a smell of jasmine which was in flower and growing up many of the shops and apartments. Craft shops boutiques sweets cafes ….. very atmospheric. Well worth a visit very French.

Next we continued exploring the Camargue area. Towards st Marie’s de la Mer. The area is an huge conservation area. We did spot flamingoes, Stilts, egrets and wading birds. 

St Marie de la mer the town is very tourist commercialised and like a huge holiday camp But the natural areas of the surrounding camargue are wild but managed by farming

The wild horses are in enclosures and fed . There was a field full of the black horned bulls too. A bit disappointing but still lovely to see them. We saw rice fields and salt marshes. The whole area is “managed”

There are many wild flowers, poppies ,yellow flag irises ,purple thistles ,gorse 

etc

So we finally headed for our holiday retreat.

Tired grandads sit here!

Finding Vincent Van Gogh

Today did not go as planned! 

We just wanted to go to the pont du gard and then maybe to Avignon. (We never got to Avignon😉)

The motorway was full of lorries and standstills with congestion so we looked on the map and stopped following our sat nav. 

There was a scenic road through the alpilles cliffs to St Remy

We decided to try that way. It was so pretty. Vegetables fruit and nut trees and olives and vines growing all around. 

When we got to the Roman ruins at cloitre St Paul we missed the car park and so turned off the road only to find by chance we were at the mausole hospital where Vincent Van Gogh spent his last year of life.

There was an exhibition of all his paintings he did in this area of Provence .

We could pay to see the hospital and his reconstructed bedroom which he painted. The church was so lovely and the gardens. It is still a psychological hospital and patients still reside there.

We walked back to the Roman ruins across the road.

From there we travelled along the rhone river to pont du gard. 

Returning to our ground floor flat at Fos sur mer we realised we are very close to the flamingoes in the marshes! You can see them from a dual carriageway but no parking opps We will try to get close to them tomorrow as we hunt for wild horses. 

Such a busy day.

Tuesday June 12

We drove along the Rhone delta and up to Arles. The photos we got there are so special 

The amphitheatre Arles

We saw what looked like a castle in the distance and so travelled there . It is The abbey montmagour.

It was built in  10 th century . The views were magnificent all over the marshes. Benedictine monks lived there for hundreds of years. 

We saw some wild horses too! No bulls or flamingos yet!

Hope you like the photos I tried to get a feel of what I saw. These are only a few of many I took.