Birthday trip, part 1

• Manja Maksimovič

I’m so happy to be able to show you fresh photos of something other than my immediate neighbourhood. Finally it happened and I went somewhere new and had lunch and gelato outside, even though it was raining. This is part one of my birthday Sunday.

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How is it possible that it was raining yesterday almost all day and today it’s a cloudless blue sky again? Anyway, beggars can’t be choosers – or something like that – and I take a road trip in any weather most gladly, even if this means eating outdoors while it gently rains on you through the sun roof, or putting on a cardigan so that you are warm enough to have some gelato.

Probably I took less photos this way but still enough to be forced to split my report from our road trip into two parts.

Today we reach Pitigliano where we have our lunch booked. I didn’t take any food photo since I was too overwhelmed to be eating publicly again after half a year plus it was raining. There was a mixed plate of crostini to share, and then yum gnocchi with porcini mushrooms. We didn’t care for meat, but amore had roasted potatoes for desert (hihi) and I had Nutella cake. Oh, and a quarter of red wine.

Then we proceed to the little monastery of Janua Coeli, which I noticed on Google Maps only a day before. Its doors convinced me that we needed to stop there. Upon parking we witness a strangest sight seemingly involving a UFO but its true nature – and the monastery door – will be revealed on Thursday.

After that we continue to Sorano for the first time and visit the medieval Orsini Fortress with its many doors, but this will come in the second part of this post one day soon.

When we reached home, we opened a sweet spumante wine and toasted with my parents and uncle online, and my birthday was complete and perfect in its wet, masked, removed, strange little way. And now I’m not a day over forty-eleven, as promised. 🙂

  • On the way. Passing Manciano, the spy of Maremma.
  • We stop at a small museum to see if there is really a nice view of Pitigliano over the valley from there.
  • Either the tree is small or this is one giant iris.
  • Pitigliano is right there opposite as expected but there is no way to reach the edge.
  • Camellia, I presume (I find it hard to distinguish them from roses). Just in: It’s a wild rose! Thank you, Duša!
  • It’s near 1pm and we must hurry to secure our table.
  • In Pitigliano we park differently than on all previous occasions and pass a cemetery with haphazard soldiers’ crosses.
  • A blooming wall.
  • Power struggle.
  • Such a great photo spot and I never knew! Too bad there is no light. I’ll be back.
  • I’m back in town.
  • Waiting at Il Noce to be seated. Since last June the place has upgraded a bit.
  • Smaller menu, less flowers, higher prices. This roof was leaking. Still, most scenic and great food.
  • My close-combat unit. Amore went to fetch the car while I waited under the bridge.
  • The parking is up that road on the left.
  • Repurposing of beer barrels.
  • Next, the Janua Coeli Monastery. As we parked, we witnessed this sight: a nun and a flying saucer.
  • Beautiful, well-kept surroundings.
  • Peaceful and quiet, except that UFO…
  • A peek at the door. To be continued.

34 thoughts on “Birthday trip, part 1”

    1. Thank you most kindly, Bojana. We were unlucky. Sunday was the rainy day surrounded by cloudless days. Today is sunny too. But yes, it’s really wet this spring but this means that it’s also lovely green and fresh. I prefer it this way. It can get really parched and yellow in May already.

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  12. Sadly because Covid I can’t Travel anymore for my blog that I just started. Feels really sad that I have to wait before planning a new travel journey 😦

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  13. Yes, I do like the look of Pitigliano very much. It reminds me of other Italian hill-top towns that I’ve visited although checking on the map I see that it is further to the west. I’ve thinking of places like Arcevia and Corinaldo – do you know them?

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    1. Great, Sarah, I hope you visit it one day. It is near Sovana and Sorano, two more fascinating places built on tufa from volcanic ash. Corinaldo is on my list already, whereas of Arcevia I never heard before. I googled it now and both are nearer the other coast of Italy where I haven’t been yet. Italy is just magical wherever you look and my list is 12 pages long. 🙂 But thanks, I love recommendations of this sort.

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