It is a wet day and the paths are muddy and in places clog up our shoes. Monteriggioni appears as a hill crowned with walls and towers but when we finally make it up the steep ascent we find only a few buildings inside.
Luckily one is a bar which supplies us with breakfast and lunchtime sandwiches of pecorino cheese and crudo ham, mmm.
We leave as the tour buses arrive and walk through oak woods without seeing either many farms or many people.
Chiocciola Castle is a handsome building and just beyond it we stop at a Donativo garden for second breakfast.
In the middle of nowhere we come upon an obelisk commentating the draining of the marshes, which took several attempts before succeeding in removing the “ dangerous miasma” of the Plan de Lago malarial swamp.
We find the entrance to the underground drainage canal that runs for a couple of kilometres, and briefly consider entering it before sense prevails.
We head on into Siena over paths of bright orange/brown earth, can this be the Burnt Siena of paintbox paint tubes?
We finish up a nasty hill with our french chums, Yves and Mari-Antoinette and head for our lodgings in the centre, where the sounds of the crowds outside our window remind us we are in a big city now.
Burnt sienna was indeed made from the clay found in Sienna, Italy. The iron oxide/manganese-rich clay is heated to create “burnt sienna.” Cool.