The West Coast of Tuscany

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During our down day we conferred with Nicolleta, our hostess, on some places she might recommend we visit on the west coast. Her recommendation was a little town on the coast called Populonia. Trying to go to either the north coast or south coast would have meant all day in the car. As it was we spent all day in the car anyway.

Populonia is an old Etrusian city that pre-dates the Roman times. It was this great old castle style lookout with a small town nearby. Unfortunately it was hazy enough that we couldn’t see the island of Elba, but the views from the top of the lookout were amazing. The climb to the top was interesting as you can see in the photos. We hiked and shopped the area for a couple hours and then decided to head up the coast to San Vincenzo; Nicolleta had recommended we have lunch there.

We had in our minds that it would be one of those seaside towns that you see in the brochures that are built into the mountainside. This was a cute town but no mountain villas. We wondered town for awhile trying to find someplace that was open; I think we just missed the lunch hour. We finally found a little non-descript place on the beach. The food was good but more like beach food, get a bite and head back to the beach. So after lunch we did just that, went to the beach.

We ventured into the Ligurian sea and it was pleasant, no cold shocks.

From San Vincenzo we headed back to the villa via a road that took us through Volterra, another Etrusan castled city. It was amazing driving up to this city as it covered the entire hill top. I don’t know if I’m doing it justice, but suffice it to say that it was amazing! By this time it was getting late and we were all a little tired of being in the car so drove on through to Monteriggioni for dinner.

Inside this little walled city there three restaurants, we picked the one with outdoor seating, Taverna, and proceeded to have a great dinner. I had wild boar, phenomenal. Vikki had steak. The steak was priced by the 100g but sold by the kilogram. Anyway she let me have a piece and it was very good. Of course we led off with some pasta and enjoyed the local wines. We packed our selves back to the van and left for the villa.

Side note. Bob took on the responsibility of driver extraordinary. As you will see from the pictures we had only inches of room at the entrance to Monteriggioni. This was not first time nor will it be the last time that we will measure clearances by inches.

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