Le Tour continues

Our tasks for this morning were for me to spend some more time editing the website and uploading more photographs, while Stuart did battle with trying to understand some of the bills we have received (and scanning and sending them to the geometra, so that he knows exactly what we have received and can advise us as to what we need to do with each - although we are assuming the advice will be 'pay them'!).

I somewhat grumpily took up my position at the computer in the office - knowing that the sun was out and that I would be spending the next five days pent up in the office wasn't the greatest of motivators, but we had always said we would spend some time doing admin-type work this weekend, and we were planning to go out for the afternoon, so I knuckled down to work.

Before I knew it I was completely absorbed in the web editing, uploading photos and details to our flora and fauna pages, and time had ticked on to gone 1pm. In the meantime, my lovely husband had prepared us some lunch, so while I set the computer to send my changes live, we went outside and ate lunch under the shade of the garden umbrella.

After lunch, we called the cats inside in readiness for us heading out for the afternoon (we're not quite ready for them to be roaming around outside on their own when we're not at home - besides which, Lucca in particular gets incredibly hot when he's running around outside, he's not the best of colours for living in a hot country, and not as good as his sister is at finding a shady spot to cool down in, so it seemed a good idea to keep them inside during the intense heat of the afternoon).

So, sun cream applied and camera in hand, we got in the car for another afternoon's sightseeing on the next stage of our Tour of the Dieci Castelli.

Before we could go very far we stopped at the first set of bins we came across in order to offload all the cardboard we had accumulated from all of yesterday's flat-pack furniture purchases. These were behind the bar/bread/panini shop we visited yesterday, and afforded us a different view of Pietrabuona:

Pietrabuona from a different angle.

Cardboard dispatched, we headed for San Quirico. The last time we'd been up this road was on bikes, and I marvelled at the fact that I had actually cycled all the way up it.

San Quirico is a very pretty village, in a lovely setting, but like so many of these villages very, very sleepy. We had expected to find a little more life going on in San Quirico as it is slightly larger than some of the other villages we have visited, but it proved to be as sleepy as the others. In fact, we remarked that if you had taken away the pots of flowers outside lots of the front doors and windowsills, you might think it was a (very beautiful) ghost town.

One thing that did surprise us was to find goldfish swimming around in the drinking fountain in the main square!

View from San Quirico.

Pretty streets of San Quirico.

San Quirico.

Church in San Quirico. 

San Quirico

Main square in San Quirico.

Fountain in the main square.

Goldfish, yes, goldfish, in the fountain.

After San Quirico, the next stop was Stiappa. Stiappa is smaller than San Quirico and just as quiet and sleepy.

Stiappa.

View from Stiappa.

Stiappa.

Stiappa church.

Stiappa.

As you approach Stiappa, you can see the red roofs and unique pyramid shape of Pontito behind it - in fact, Pontito is the easiest of all of the villages to identify from afar thanks to this pyramid shape. It was there that we headed next.

Pontito.

On arriving at the village, we were immediately struck by two things. First, we saw and heard signs of life! On drawing into the parking area we came across a group of older ladies just sitting down on some benches for what I could only assume would be a good old afternoon's gossip, as well as an elderly man sitting on a wall passing the time of day. Secondly, the cobbled streets into the town were steep!

This little town, perched at the top of the valley, was a delightful surprise. While all of the villages are pretty and in lovely locations, we were warmed by the amount of life we heard and saw going on in this tiny little place. As well as the group of ladies, we heard sounds of a lively family meal wafting down from an open window in one of the houses, walked past a tiny bar with sounds of whooping going on from within (either a lively card game or maybe something more along the lines of table football?), and walked past a number of residents either tending to their pot plants or otherwise going about their business.

It's a steep climb to the top of the village!

Pontito steps.

View from Pontito.

Pontito.

View from the church, Pontito.

After we'd walked around Pontito, we were both starting to feel slightly dehydrated and kicked ourselves for not having brought a bottle of water out with us. We decided therefore to leave the final of the dieci castelli, Castelvecchio, for another day and head into Pescia for an ice cream treat.

However, we took the road that passes Castelvecchio on our way back down the valley, and as we drove past, we made a brief stop to look at the Romanesque church that lies just outside the main part of the village.

We also remembered (from our visit last August when we were looking at properties) that Castelvecchio has a modern sculpture competition and exhibition immediately outside the Romanesque church - an unlikely place to find modern art, but there you are!

Modern sculptures.

Church tower.

Church of SS. Rosario.

We then headed all the way back down the valley and into Pescia, where we parked up in the main square and headed for the gelateria 'hut' by the river for a very welcome cold ice cream. We ate them sitting on a bench overlooking the river, watching the hubbub of people enjoying their sunny Sunday afternoon, walking dogs, fishing, sunbathing, playing at the side of the river, watching the ducks and so on. It was also the first time we've been in Pescia on foot to witness the fountains being on in the middle of the river (we've previously seen them from the car as we're driving past).

Pescia's river fountains.

After finishing our ice creams, it was time to head home for a cold drink and a final stint at doing some work. The cats were grateful to be let back outdoors again, although we suspect that they actually quite enjoyed an afternoon nap in the relative cool of the house while we were out. They were less impressed when Stuart got his work gloves on and his sledge hammer out and set to work smashing up the concrete construction that had previously been used as a BBQ. Thankfully, it didn't take too much smashing to get it into small enough pieces to remove, and while I wheelbarrowed the pieces to the designated area for building waste (the site of the former lean-to that will eventually become the new extension), Stuart set to work on tidying the wood pile and re-laying some of the large stones to make a clearer outline to the car-parking area.

Before we knew it, the clock over in Pietrabuona was striking 7pm, so Stuart downed tools and set to work on setting up the BBQ for its christening while I did some weeding. Once the BBQ had started to get going, we sat at the new table and chairs on the guest patio area with the tablet PC and while our food was sizzling on the BBQ, we watched yesterday's highlights from the Tour de France.

We had been disappointed last night not to be able to find any coverage of the Tour de France on the Internet - all that ITV Player could offer us was a program covering the opening ceremony two days ago. However, it seems we were just being a bit impatient as sure enough, the highlights of Stage 1 were ready to view on ITV Player today - so it looks like we will have to be content with watching it all one day behind everyone else! It was fantastic, and slightly surreal to watch it on a tiny computer screen sitting in the foothills of the Italian mountains! The Yorkshire countryside looked stunning, and what fantastic weather they had. We were gutted for Mark Cavendish, of course, even though we already knew what had happened.

We managed to time our food and the cycling to coincide perfectly, so as the programme ended, we had just finished eating, the temperature had started dropping, and we were ready to pack up and retire indoors.

As ever, the weekend seems to have gone in a flash. Stuart has another day's strimming work in Lanciole tomorrow (as well as Thursday), so it'll be a home-alone day for me again. So in preparation for the week ahead, it's time to turn in and attempt to get a good night's sleep.