Out to the Sea

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Thursday, Oct 6th Trip to the Sea
Today was supposed to be the last warm day, so we decided to head out to the sea. Stefano recommended a few places to visit. We headed west past Volterra and stopped in the small town of Bolgheri. Leaving town towards the sea on either side of the main road is a line of huge cypress trees. It is what the town is famous for, as well as for Bolgheri wine. Very pretty. We then arrived at the seaside town of Marina di Bibbona. It was a large resort area that was mostly shut down for the winter (today was still really hot, over 25 degrees). It appeared to be more of a resort town for local Tuscans than tourists. We had a lunch in a little restaurant on the beach. I had seafood pasta, but Claude was not feeling well as we had followed 2 horrible polluting cars for half the trip and the fumes had really given him a headache and upset stomach, so he had a pretty plain lunch.
We had brought our swim suits but decided just to walk the beach and wade in the water instead of changing to go swimming. They were large beaches and pretty empty but the water was warm so there were many people swimming, and kids making sand castles. Beaches are pretty much the same everywhere. We did get to say we were in the Mediterranean Sea (I guess it is actually called the Ligurian Sea - a sort of section off the Mediterranean.
After leaving there we were just going to head home, but we drove past a nice looking town on a hill so decided to stop. It was called Casale di Marittima. It was completly not touristy. Very cute with narrow windy streets all with private houses instead of tourist shops like in San Gimignano. We wandered around there poking into little streets for awhile. It is really fun to explore these little towns. The area close to the coast is quite different from the San Gimignano, - flatter and drier. And the Volterra region in between is even drier. Stefano said that region is too dry for grapes and olives, and they mostly grow grain.
Our main job for the evening was to try to find accommodation for the rest of our stay after we leave the farm on Saturday. We have decided to go down to Umbria and stay in the Perugia area as a base to explore that region until time to go back to Florence. We sent out a few emails and hopefully will have a place confirmed in the morning.

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