Stage 35b: Buonconvento to San Quirico. Big skies and broad beans.

A train from the busy streets of Siena, to the more tranquil morning cool in Buonconvento, a passport stamp upstairs in the Commune (the tower in the photo)

and back onto the Via again. Today felt like an endless uphill climb, which it really can't have been, with enormous skies and panoramas from the chilly breezy ridges.

Totally Tuscany now, elegant pine tree-lined approaches to grand wineries, and vineyards as far as the eye can see. I notice that broad beans, sometimes mixed with peas, are grown in between the vines, presumably as a nitrogen fixer. Later, on the approach to San Quirico, I found some escapees by the path. 

Any pilgrims walking this route later in the year will have a free snack!

A brief cake and coffee stop in Torrenieri, 

and on, uphill again, to the charming Francigena town of San Quirico, and an evening spent making arrangements for the forthcoming strike days, from my palazzo apartment on the Via.