Friday, 16 November 2012

San Quirico d’ Orcia is another small village just to the west of us about 20 miles.  It is a short drive through some of the same roads we have been traveling for the past week on our travels in that direction.  The town has a couple of small, quaint churches, a token palazzo (palace) and most importantly LOTS of wine and cheese shops along with some very good restaurants.  I think the town has taken the approach of “if you can’t wow them with art and sculpture…. knock ’em out with food delights!”  Trust me, they do a great job.  It was another glorious sunny day with a cool wind and we did our best to get the sight seeing in before a long lunch and some wine.  We have found it necessary to develop an alternating daily schedule of a large lunch/small dinner day with the opposite the next.

Patterns in the landscape.

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The Colligeta is the architectural masterpiece of the village and was built during the 8th century.

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The ancient fortification walls surround the village.

Standard shutter color in town is a bright green.

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This is a manicured boxwood hedge formal garden that is used as a sculpture display venue during the summer.

The sun pours into a church.

If there is a bit of green space and it has an olive tree on it somebody will be harvesting. This one happened to be in a yard in the village.

The fortification walls have occasional towers which apparently have been transformed into living spaces.

Scenery on the drive home.

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