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Published: June 18th 2011
If, your of a nervous disposition, or have no interest in insects , skip the next couple of paragraphs.
In the first week s of our voyage Ali was delving in to one of the storage boxes, she screamed, as she had picked up a cling film box with an earwig, which she promptly hurled at my head - with Earwig inside. I mentioned to her , that as we head south, the bugs were going to get bigger and more intrusive. I was pleased though today, that on seeing an Earwig, she picked it up between her forefinger and thumb and threw it out the Bongo door. Unfortunately I was in the door – has she got something against me?
The downside of camping - of any sort. is that you eventually have to co-exist with insects. Ali has a particular aversion to spiders, I’m not a fan myself, but spiders are generally solitary creatures, whereas Earwigs sometimes bring their friends along, as for Ants and cockroaches they seem to bring their whole family. In all the years I’ve been camping it’s never been a big problem though. I hate to have been right about the bugs but now
we are in Tuscany, I’ve found a bug I hadn’t seen before. The size of House Spider, but the body of a beetle and metallic blue in colour. ( See photo). Also we are now encountering Cicadas, grasshopper type insects, with their distinctive sounds, they can be pretty startling.
Insects can have upside though. Tonight, at our new campsite at San Gimignano, as we walked through a dark path, we caught a dazzling display of Firefly, those that flew looked like someone was swinging a lighted piece of wood through the air. The ones that were stationary looked like Navigation beacons, spectacular!.
To get to San Gimignano, we passed some amazing Tuscan scenery. Medieval forts, and its patchwork patterns of different crops. Olives, Vines and even some Sunflowers. The crops cascaded over the hillsides as far as the eyes could see.
We made just an overnight stop at San G. It was a lovely site and had some amazing views over the Tuscan countryside from the terrace
This medieval town set on the top of a hill, is known as ‘the town of the beautiful towers’ and once had 72 towers of which today only 15 are
intact. Narrow streets guide your way through the town. It’s a bit touristy but worth a visit to look round.
We head on south west towards the Mediterranean, towards Castiglion della Pescaia where we will stay for a few days. So we can charge our batteries, ready for the bustling, manic city that is Rome.
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