FourFirths: Tuscany with kids...

April 2, 2012

The kids have the week before Easter off from school, so we decided to do some exploring with them. Once again, the Back Roads of Italy book from Leigh Gillett came in handy. We drove to the city of Montesi which is about an hour north west of Perugia in Tuscany. Spring seems to be arriving and the views were amazing, but when we saw this yellow hillside, we just had to stop. Jason actually took the best pictures!

Jason enjoyed taking pics of Danika and making her laugh on the drive...

We arrived in Montesi, parked the car and started out on our (what the book was telling us was a ) 3 hour hike through Crete Senesi. As we started off down a dirt road, we passed by an olive grove where they had just finished pruning and were burning the branches. This is a typical scene all around Umbria and Tuscany this time of year.

It is so interesting to be able to hike around and see castles on the surrounding hillsides…

The fresh air was fabulous.

At one point, a man drove by in his car stopped to chat. He asked us where we were going and such, and wished us a good walk (buon passagiano). A little later, David was reading from the Back Roads book, and it spoke of Giuseppe, a local farm owner. We wondered if that was Giuseppe… As we walked further, we came upon the same man out feeding his donkeys. When we stopped to talk, I asked him if he was Giuseppe, and sure enough, he was. Such a nice man J

The hike actually skirted his farm, but he told us to go on through, so we did.

Our favorite part was visiting with the goats. All the goats seemed terribly interested in us too…

There was a new baby which was adorable, but kept hidden under the feed bin.

Our favorite was the goat at the far back right, because he was actually smiling at us J

We had to say goodbye to the beautiful farm, and of course the rooster too...

The path ran through lovely rolling hills…

Through a small forest…

We even found loads of porcupine quills…

We went past a bunch of grazing sheep who also found us very interesting…

The hike only took us two hours and we even got lost a bit… We ended our hike with a walk through town…

And lunch overlooking the valley…

Then it was off to Bagno Vignoni which was about 20 minutes away. Bagno Vignoni is a place with hot springs not much different from Yellowstone. However, we were surprised that the water was luke warm at the top…

and quite cool in the pool below.

The kids were the first to take off their shoes and venture in the water.

The water was clear blue, with white mud at the bottom. At first it looked like little plants were growing all over the bottom in little dark brown patches. However, on closer inspection, we found that it was really clusters of tadpoles. There were millions of them…