D36 San Miniato to Siena

I awoke to the first morning rain of the trip! The cloud was down and one could have been in Northern England for a few mins until that SouthernSun started working its magic and the most lifted a little to actually accentuate the beauty of Tuscany.

The route was hillier than anticipated but they don't go on too long ( rather devonlike) and the views more than compensate. I enjoyed watching dogs work sheep across a tuscan landcape with yellows from the sunflowers somehow radiating a yellow sheen to the sheep which were visible mainly through their swirling movement.

Lunch stop was San Giminnano still over run by tourists and probably best at a distance (seen below from one of the many strade bianchi (gravel roads more prosaically) which I rode and will be riding on the way to Rome (about 40% according to the VF literature).

 

Nevertheless I will always remember my white bean and boar stew dish which I tucked into after a strenuous morning! Having studied the map I decided Siena was doable and pushed on. A lovely 15 kms of railway route were an unexpected bonus. An exceptional off road section through woodland took me past both a medieval castle (apparently perfectly preserved from a distance) and an Etruscan Megalith neither of which I could stop for as the rain  was returning and there was thunder above so it was a push for Siena enormously encouraged by this info board with the castello behind.

The evening session was hard as the road wound up to the two  ridges on which Sienna sits. Booking .com had come up with a fab Palazzo just south of the city and my sat nav sent me round the main road SS2 which swings round the city. If I had been more clear thinking and less tired I probably should have cut through the city but that's easy in retrospect . Anyway on reflection over an arrival beer I reckoned the day amounted to a str­ong bid for the coveted yellow jersey on­ general classification. Having hung on ­in there in the mountains I got to a cru­ising speed of 25km/HR on the flat on th­e stony non tarmacced trails which I'll ­be riding for half the time now down to ­Rome. Well chuffed. Then to round off a ­full day I was having to contend with so­me traffic in the approach into Sienna i­n a thunderstorm so I was doing my defen­sive riding style taking centre of the l­ane in a busy underpass when to be fair ­in the first piece of bad Italian drivin­g I've seen a guy in a fiat overtook me ­dangerously despite my v clear positioni­ng to prevent it _ I guess in his head b­ikes could never be allowed to be a car ­positionally. Anyway I snapped and put i­n a 100m sprint worthy of Cav on the up­side of the underpass, caught him and fl­icked him the v with a heartfelt cry of ­FU Tosser! Extra GC points for the exple­tive?