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Day 12
- Today we start on some familiar routes as we want to
ride through Castigline d'Orcia, and then on to Ansidonia where we
turn east and head for the Abbey to hear the monks chant. 80 km |
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Riding by the now familiar ploughed fields. |
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Past Castiglione.... |
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Looking east from Castiglione d'Orcia hill. |
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Looking towards Castelnuovo del'Abate. |
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I love the look of the cypress trees lining the roads. |
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From here we get to ride some wickedly fun downhill for a very long way.
Sherman flatted again on the way down. Always slowing us down. |
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"I gotta get food."
Heading to Castelnuovo to pick up some lunch to eat while were at the
Abbey. |
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Have a seat.
You'll find one in your pants. |
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Sant' Antimo
After standing empty for some five hundred years, the abbey is today
maintained by a small group of French monks - a Cistercian off-shoot known
as the Premonstratensians - who celebrate Mass several times daily in
haunting Gregorian chant. |
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Eating lunch under the olive trees while waiting for the monks to begin. |
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There was a fellow inside the church playing the Oboe before the monks
came in. The acoustics were amazing in this big stone church with vaulted
ceilings. The ceilings had huge wood beams. There were only 3 monks but it sounded amazing. |
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Looking back up at Castelnuovo, where we had bought our lunch from.
Unfortunately we had to ride back up to the top of the hill to head on to
the next town. |
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Just before leaving the Abbey. |
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Next stop, Montalcino. |
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Sandy, Doug and Vic stop to check the view just outside of town. |
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I had been suffering from pressure from my shoe since the start of the trip
and this was the last straw. I got my Swiss army knife out and cut a hole in the
shoe. |
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Montalcino history.
Montalcino's origins are unknown, though it has probably been inhabited
since Paleolithic or Etruscan times. Nor is anyone quite sure where its
name comes from, thought its coat of arms - a holm oak atop six hill -
suggests that it derives from the Latin Mons Ilcinus the Mount of
the Holm Oak. The first reference to the town appears in 814, when it is
mentioned in a list of territories ceded to the abbey of Sant'Antimo by
Louis the Pious. It was probably only permanently settled, however, around
the year 1000, when it was colonized by fugitives fleeing Saracen attacks
on the Maremma coast. The exiles' four family groups - the Borghetto,
Pianello, Ruca and Travaglio - defined the four quarters or contrade
of the town; the rival flags still hang outside the houses and they
compete against each other in twice-yearly archery tournaments. |
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The Rocca
The walls enclose a public park and in-house Enoteca - a place to
sample some of the famed Brunello wine along with a snack of bread, cheese
and salami. |
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View of country side from Montalcino castle. |
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Although this street doesn't look particularly steep,
we almost needed the
hand rail to pull ourselves up. |
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This is the road leading out of town. |
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Nice cement fence. |
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We took as many side roads as we could as we wound our way towards home. |
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Grapes galore! |
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I had to get a picture of this
- something we might
entertain in this country. You have to wear a plastic glove on your hand
before touching any of the vegetables in the grocery stores. You also have to put them on the
scales yourself and it spits out a label with the price and then you take
it to the till.
Think those old guys at the
Co-Op in Calgary can handle that?
We were buying a just a few items so that we could make a
meal out of all our leftovers. This was to be our last meal we would cook
for ourselves. The famed sticky rice and left overs. |
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Shift into gear for
13 - Final Day |
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