Ca plane pour moi...

"I shall say this only once..."

Destination...Bergerac, not the old pathetic low budget Sunday night police detective series from the 70's featuring John Nettles as DCI Barnaby, no, the other one in the Dordogne in France where a fella called Cyrano once lived.

The Dordogne is beautiful this time of year, the scent of fromage, the eau de toilette  and sparkle of the Perrier...you can't beat it!

Tucking into baguettes and quaffing 'le vin', this is what holidays are made of in these parts. Hardly spent a euro so far and the folk we have met along the way all speak English so it's been like home from home.....

Anyway, the first 'nuit' is drawing in so tune in tomoz for further progress.

Today's track by Plastic Bertrand, a spoof 'new wave' track from about '77....one for the kidz....

Bigmouth Strikes Again...

While it may be the hottest day since Gavrilo Princip shot the Archduke Francis Ferdinand and knackered European relations for a while, and in some places within the UK the heat is unbearable; up here, in the North of England it is pouring with rain and as miserable and dreary as a classic 'Smiths' song - so you won't be surprised to learn that this travel blog is going to be back in action very very soon.

It's almost time for the 'Great British Bugger Off'...this is where two Hairy Shirkers get dropped in the middle of the Dordogne in gastronomic French France and have to survive and evade capture by visiting daft sounding places like 'Boulangerie', 'Charcuterie' and 'Patisserie' and then, armed only with a few worthless euros and basic O'level knowledge in how to describe to a Gallic chap that 'The dog lives behind the house!' they have only a week to build their own Chateaux and then cook a massive spotted dick using only a make-shift fire-pit and a slotted spoon....

So, should be a hoot!

As ever, the format will the same -  each blog title being a song, lyric or album from my own IPod and will playfully sync with a content that will probably be topically libellous, hopefully occasionally humorous and many times completely factually incorrect, so if this is your bag, then.....get your buns in the oven and 'Regardez' this space mon ami's.......

The first blog title of this trip is of course written and performed by the great moaner, Morrissey and the Smiths with a classic to get us in the mood...

Last Goodbye...

Taking our seats in the upstairs section of the very modern 12 o clock train, we left Grosseto and had a great elevated view of the coastline as we made the 2 hour ride back up through Cecina and Livorno back to Pisa.

We had wanted to do the whole trip by public transport this time and it had not let us down, a great relaxing and comfortable way to see this area of Italy.

Now, with a handy place to stay within 5 minutes walk to the airport for the morning, we had the last chance to have a look around the town before we said 'Arrivederci' to Pisa and flew over the leaning tower and then over the snowy Alps back to Blighty.

Last track of the trip from Jeff Buckley.

Slide Away...

Up and packed to catch the 8'o'clock bus outside the B&B.

We headed back down the now familiar twisting SS74 through Marsiliana, Albinia and returned to Grosetto. The return journey turned out to be a lot cheaper as we hadn't got a ticket, the driver didn't seem to want to sell us one and on arriving at Grosseto, no-one asked for one!

...'Gratuito'....

Now familiar with place, we checked back into the same Hotel San Lorenzo that we had enjoyed a few days earlier and then immediately left to grab a Panini and return back to the train station for a 20 minute ride up the coast to Follonica.

The reason...Follonica Aqua Park!

In soaring temperatures we spent a wet and wild afternoon climbing hundreds of steps to go shooting down twisting pipes and 50 metre death slides with names like Kamikaze and Anaconda providing frequent but compulsory bouts of colonic irrigation!

Plunging into pools on rubber dinghies and battling through icy waterfalls, the water park had it all.

The kids loved it....!

A fancy white Mercedes taxi opened its automatic side doors to take us wearily back to the 'Stazione' and then on the next train, with our tickets validated, we were back in Grosetto.

The only thing left to do was to revisit the delicatessen 'Gustangolo' on Via Solferino and sit outside until the sun went down with a glass or 3 of, this time another fantastic find, and an absolute scorcher, 'Ansonica' from Celestina Fe.

Once again, Ristorante 'L'Uva e il Malto provided a fine end to the day with more stunningly tasty plates of food.

'Slide Away' is still a favourite from 'Oasis' off their debut album, and arguably best 'Definitely Maybe'.

Strange and Beautiful...

Sunday

Parking the Lancia at the top of Via Cava Della Madonna Delle Grazie we descended by foot down and along the strange old twisting Etruscan passageways that had been hand carved out of the Tofu rock centuries earlier. A network of these mysterious roads are abundant in this area and a few can be linked up which is what we planned to do. 

Like medieval trolls entering a strange magical kingdom in a land that time forgot we followed the tunnel like lanes that were wick with darting lizards and linked up with the road that led to Via Cava Di San Giuseppe and followed this up to La Fontana Dell' Olmo, a natural spring before returning back to the town Pitigliamo....a strange but pleasantly satisfying stroll.

Back in the Lancia it was 42C so we needed a breezy drive around the twisting hairpin bends to cool off and on to visit two smaller nearby towns of Sovana and Sorano. Both pretty but just too hot to walk around them much....back to the pool HQ with a couple more samples from the Enoteca....

Today's song by Aqualung, and the title track off their first self titled album in 2002. 

Hazy Daze...

Saturday

The first half of the day was spent wandering around the hilltop Etruscan settlement and impressive ancient citadel of Pitigliano, with its tiny narrow streets and curious old shops with hanging hams selling cured wild boar they are commonly abundant within the nearby forests.

It all looks and feels prehistoric.

Narrow streets and old winding stone steps.

The town sits on top of vulcanic rock with dark chambers and hobbit holes carved out underneath for storing sausages, barrels of vino and probably dead bodies...

For some reason the ancient Jewish synagogue was being protected by two armed guards. 

This place is so OLD!

History documents it from year 1000 but some of it dates back to B.C.(B4 J.C.)

It's still so old that there is no Wifi to be found for miles around...

 

With fresh sea bass and calamari purchased for barbecuing 

later we left the Bronze Age and headed out next to the local 

vineyard of Villa Corano for an afternoon of wine tasting. 

Despite the initial 'finished' arm wavering that actually translated as 'Welcome, do come in, the massive dog won't bite you', we were invited to see how grapes are magically transformed into liquids with delicately smoky after tones .....Vino, to you and me!

.... 2 hours later, having tasted everything that they made with their 17 hectares, we sloshed back to retire to the pool HQ with a couple of samples to authenticate. A full bodied single grape 'Alicante' and an old perfumed Rose made with an original grape variety dating back to God knows when, to remind us of how interestingly tasty it all was!

Turned out that it was the brothers place of where we were staying so we had to try his wine too later that evening....

Salve....

Hazy Daze from the Stone Temple Pilots about sums up what a trip to Tuscany is about....!

Doing it to Death...

Friday

 We left Grosseto by bus the following morning, a journey of about 2 hrs heading down to the coast and then in to the hills. We were the only passengers left by the halfway point so it would seem that the aspiring F1 driver wanted to give us a hair-raising taste of how to pilot a modern turbo-charged bus at breakneck speed around mountain chicanes while one-handedly having a chat with his mate about the footie on the mobile. Like a white knuckle ride of death we eventually screeched to a halt on reaching our destination. The doors flew open and across the road was the B&B, Maremma Nel Tufo, a huge converted farmhouse 2km from Pitigliano.

This deserted Tuscan style 'Casa' had hardly any guests either, so on arrival we were immediately upgraded and given a first floor apartment with a kitchen and a terrace facing the pool. On realising we had 'come on the bus', he also arranged for us to use Dad's Lancia for a few days so we could bob about the area...didn't even need to contact the DVLA for a reference number- a much easier system when your in the EU, it would seem!

A newish track by the 'Kills' off their latest album 'Ash & Ice', last year I think?