In Colle Val d'Elsa - walk to Poggibonsi on former rail grade

Our first impressions of Colle were very positive! Our little apartment is beautiful, we're right in the middle of the "centro storico", and the town is small enough that you can become familiar quickly.

At the tourist info office we learned of a bike and foot trail that connects this town with Poggibonsi, 8 km to the north, on the grade of a former railroad that operated from 1885 to 1987. We packed a lunch and set out on foot Sunday morning. The weather was beautiful and as soon as the sun hit us we were peeling layers off. We saw dozens of walkers and cyclists.

Percourso cicloturistico Colle - Poggibonsi

We relaxed for a while in Poggibonsi, eating sandwiches on a park bench followed by coffees in a bar before walking home. Our round trip was an "easy" 16.5 km, being a railroad grade.

Lunch in a piazza, Poggibonsi

Back in Colle, the late afternoon light on the old buildings was beautiful. We know we're lucky to be experiencing this weather, given how it is in the Cariboo this time of year.

Centro Storico, Colle Val d'Elsa

Centro Storico, Colle Val d'Elsa

In Colle Val d'Elsa (Fri, Sat, Sun)

This town is our second of two destinations where I had booked an apartment online for 11 nights. Why the long stay? It's a small town without famous sights, not written up in guidebooks. We had never been here but we knew the region had good country roads for walking. It was a bit of a gamble based on being in the middle of some recommended walking (more about that later) and the fact that I was able to find an apartment online in our price range and convenient without a rental car.

When we arrived on the train from Florence, I phoned the apartment manager (Gabrielle) from the Poggibonsi train station and he kindly came to pick us up, saving us 20 or 30 Euros for a taxi. We had a little mis-communication due to my Italian language skills but he was unfazed and happily drove us back to our apartment which is above his restaurant. We're in the centre of the oldest part of the "Centro Storico" of Colle Val d'Elsa. The name means Hill in the valley of the Elsa and the Historic Centre is on a small but sharply defined hill overlooking the larger and newer part of the city. This area was settled by the Etruscans around 4,000 B.C. and our part of the old town dates from 900 A.D. Our apartment overlooks the valley with beautiful views on two sides and we are less than a 10 minute walk from the main piazza.

The "centro storico" of Colle Val d'Elsa

One of the first things to do when you arrive in town and check into your apartment is go GROCERY shopping. Fortunately, that "chore" is more fun here than most places. We just missed the friday morning market but the Co-op Supermercato is FANTASTIC. It's easy to throw something together like this. The only thing we cooked was the porcini mushrooms fried in olive oil.

Salad of arugula, basil, cherry tomatoes, porcini mushrooms.
Plate of fava beans, olives, and grana padano cheese
Bruschetta given to us by our host. 

Walking and eating around Greve

For this trip, we picked two main destinations with long stays in each rather than going from town to town. The advantages are less time spent in train and bus stations, less time spend packing and unpacking, and lest time getting to know your way around. After 2 nights in Florence, our first destination was Greve in Chianti. We were here for a week in 2009 so we knew we would like it for its small size, great markets, and great walking in the countryside a few minutes from the main piazza.

A stone-paved country road between Greve and Panzano. We're not sure how old this type of road would have to be but there was an important route through here even in the third century B.C. 

Fresh funghi porcini at Greve's monthly Mercato Biologico (Organic Market)  

I found a Greve apartment on Booking.com that was cheaper than our typical hotel or B&B. The total for this one came to 310 Euros for 7 nights and we saved loads of money on restaurants. There's nothing more satisfying that buying and cooking fresh food in Tuscany! 

Wonderful market ingredients ... delicious, healthy, and cheap meals.

Our apartment for 7 nights in Greve, 5 minute walk from main piazza

 We had nice weather in Greve for all but one day. When you come home after walking with wet clothes it's really nice to have lots of space to spread things around. This place was well-lit, quiet and comfortable. Our host was also a really sweet man.

The downstairs of our Greve apartment

Our main activity around Greve was walking on country roads. We've used walking guidebooks in the past, without great success. This time I planned the routes in Google Earth the night before, transferred tracks to a little GPS unit and used it to navigate. It worked better than anything we've tried before but this is partly because the area west of Greve has beautiful country roads and farm tracks with almost no traffic in October.  

Montefioralle is a gorgeous little hill town a few km from Greve. Those are grape leaves turning colours.

Our longest walk was the day we took a bus to Radda and walked back to Greve. Our 7 day total was about 90 km.

Screen shot of our tracks around Greve 

Vancouver to Florence

Travel usually involves a lot of sitting and waiting but at least the Vancouver International Airport has one of the most beautiful public spaces of any terminal. Here, Jane is in the wake of Bill Reid's Legend of Sedna, one of my favourite sculptures in the world.  

At YVR Oct 20th 2015

We spent our first two nights in Florence giving us one full day to seek out our kinds of sights and activities, i.e., not the Uffizi or Academia.

Morning light on the Arno

Gypsum on sulphur from Italy, mineral collection of Adalberto Giazotti 

We bought three beautiful little water colours from Carlo Crolli on the street near the Piazza Pitti

Three weeks with a host near Noto, Sicily

My seven week trip to Italy is mainly a volunteer/host experience where I work for about 25 hours/week in return for room and board. I spent 2 weeks with a host in Ostuni, Puglia, then took a train down here to Noto, Sicily where I've been for a little over 3 weeks.

Noto is a city of 25,000 with a beautiful historic centre and some interesting sights. My host, Adriano, is a 27 year old Italian from Milan who, with his family, is developing a high-end B&B property and olive grove on a hillside a couple kilometres outside of town.

Main house at "Olive Alive", Noto in the distance

While I've been here Adriano has been busy coordinating contractors building a swimming pool. With summer temperatures up into the 40's Celsius (104 F) a swimming pool is essential for a place like this.  

Concrete being poured for swimming pool deck

Adriano needs a lot of volunteers in the fall during the olive harvest but I've been the only volunteer here for my 3 weeks. The olive trees were pruned in the winter and my job has been to turn big piles of branches into a firewood and tied bundles of kindling for next winter. It's been repetitive but simple and my workplace is beautiful and the daydreaming has been entertaining. It will be a sad day for volunteers (of a certain type) when this job is eliminated by a chipper!

This is about a week's work 

Adriano also asked if I could make some rustic benches out of big pieces of almond trees that had been cut last year. Oh, if I only had access to big olive branches and slabs of almond back home. It is so different from fir, pine and willow! But I like local materials and olive and almond are definitely not local at home.

Chain saw benches of almond wood. A rustic table and two more benches will be added. 

My stay with Adriano has been extremely interesting and worthwhile. His accomplishments and what he is doing now are amazing for a young guy. He's also a really nice person and a natural host. You can read about Olive Alive at http://www.olivealive.it/. If you are interested in this type of travel, check out www.workaway.info or www.helpx.net. Adriano's listing is at http://www.helpx.net/host.asp?hostid=32700

I'm leaving tomorrow for 10 days of "holiday" in Siracusa, Catania, and Naples before flying home.

Camera gear and gizmos

This is a blog about travel experiences, not photography but I'm more serious than some so I carry more equipment. Everyone packs differently and I like reading what other photographers take.

My priority is to be able to capture mostly landscape, architectural and street photos under a variety of conditions without being bogged down by equipment. One checked bag and a carry on is my limit because I want to be able to move around without a car or taxis.

Here's the camera gear and electronics that I brought on this trip.

From left, roughly counterclockwise: Macbook Air with homemade sleeve, external hard drive with homemade sleeve, Nikon D7000 with Nikkor 12-24mm lens and soft case, Fuji X100s and soft case, UltraPod mini-tripod, Feisol carbon fibre tripod, power supplies and battery chargers. The Nikon and Fuji battery chargers share the same little power plug and don't require a power cable. In the centre is a short extension cord with a European adapter taped to the plug end. Lastly, a Delorme inReach satellite communicator that can send and receive emails from anywhere with a view of the sky.

Comments

• I got the Delorme inReach for backcountry travel. It hasn't been essential on this trip, so far. 
• The little homemade extension cord in the middle of the photo is great for charging multiple devices. 
• The small and light Fuji camera has an excellent lens, is a joy to carry and is less conspicuous than my DSLR for street photography. 
• I took the above photo with my "new" refurbished iPhone 3 which I planned to use mainly for GPS. However, I also got a SIM card at a Vodaphone store in Naples for voice and text within Italy for 20 Euros/month and it has been worth it. 

More gear doesn't guarantee more good photos but it can help. The tripod allows capturing moody and unusual images when the harshness of daylight is gone. The mini tripod does the same thing but less well. I use it while walking in the evening when the full size tripod is inconvenient. I often use it sideways, braced against a wall.

I'll say more about bringing two cameras in another post.

The art and craft of pottery, 2,300 years ago

I'm catching up with posts after being on trains and off the internet for a couple days.

I know very little about pottery and less about art history but I was awed by the pottery collection at the provincial archaeological museum in Lecce, Italy three days ago. Two things impressed me about the two thousand year old ceramics - the large size of some of the pieces and the applied artwork. The ones I liked most had paintings inspired by nature and human form. Since my knowledge is so deficient, I'll just post some photos and dates.

Museo Provinciale, Lecce - Free admission

From the 4th or 3rd century B.C.
Looking closely at the brush strokes it's clear much of the colour has faded. See next photo.

You can see the old brush strokes.  That's some kind of bird in the middle surrounded by flowers perhaps.
Imagine what it looked like before the colours faded! 

More colour survives in these pieces from the 5th century B.C. 

This piece from the 4th century B.C. was at least 60 cm high! 

Detail on previous piece

That's enough before I get carried away! Maybe some of my potting friends can enlighten me later.