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We slept in this morning. Some photo tour - no getting up in the pre-dawn hours unless we want to! The photo on the right above was the view I saw when I opened the shutters. If you compare this to the same view yesterday, you'll notice that someone had cut the hay in the far field as we slept. I shot some photos around the farmhouse before breakfast, which was very good. Cereal, yogurt, coffee cake, toast, juice, coffee, tea, your choice. The photo on the right above shows the road to San Quirico. That's a broom in bloom in the foreground.
The photos above were all taken in the courtyard of Il Rigo. The one on the left is of the windows of one of the common rooms on the upper level with sky and a roof reflected in them. The center one is the interior set of stairs to the upper level. In the one on the right, Carl relaxes with another cup of coffee while waiting for our first workshop session to begin.
After breakfast, we had our first workshop session with Eddie. Most of it was logistics for the week and a brief refresher of what was covered in the last workshop. Very informal.
Once that broke up, Carl and I took off to find the poppy field that everyone has been talking about - a large field full of red poppies. We drove right to it. Beautiful! I'd like to go back to it with early light and do some serious shooting. (Later edit - never did make it back to the poppies.) The quick shots I took that morning are shown above.
From the poppy field, we drove to Pienza for a late lunch (sandwiches) and to wander the town for a while. The photo on the left above is a cypress lined driveway near the town of Pienza. The second photo above shows a couple of hardy bicyclists approaching Pienza, which looms above them. The third photo above shows some of the remaining city walls of Pienza. The photo on the right above is Peinza's clock tower.
From Pienza, we took the road to Monticchiello, which had some nice lines of cypress trees. The photo on the left above shows some of the cypress lined roads near Monticchiello. The photos on the right are windows I found in Monticchiello. The center one has petunias and the one on the right has geraniums.
We then drove by Castelluccio and La Foce looking for some Etruscan ruins (Poggio Bachernia) that were marked on the map. We finally found them, exactly where the map said they should be, near Chianciano. We took a short hike back into the woods to find them. There wasn't much to see, just some stubs of house walls and an outline of a well, but they were over 2000 years old - that's what matters. The photos above are two views of the meadow and the ruins.
Then we drove back through La Foce (and another wonderful cypress line - need to get back to that spot one of these mornings - the line was backlit and a bit pale in the photo. The photos above are different views of this line of cypress (Later edit - never found time for this one, either).
And on to San Quirico d'Orcia, the other town near our farmhouse. The three photos above were all taken in San Quirico d'Orcia. The one on the left is one of the churches in town and the one on the right is the other church in the historic area. The photo in the center is of some wildflowers growing from the bricks of the city wall that encircles the town.
As we entered town, I could hear drum beats. We followed our ears to a park where a troupe was practicing their drum corps routine (medieval drums) and flag tossing. We sat there on a bench watching them for about half an hour. We wandered town for a while, then went into Trattoria Ossena for a lovely meal. Carl had the ribbolito, a hearty beef stew. I had something called beef stew which turned out to be stewed beef - just the beef, no potatoes, carrots, onions, or anything else I normally associate with beef stew. Interesting, but I won't order it again. Too much meat for one meal.
We returned to the farmhouse about 9:30 and immediately crashed.