Days 15–16: we head for the sea… at last!
After a quiet night at the camper stop we have breakfast looking out over a beautiful Tuscan landscape: gravel roads winding up between cypresses. And since we are almost there, we are not going to miss Monteriggioni. A lovely little place inside a fortress, with wide views over the countryside around, and a stage on the Via Francigena — the old pilgrims' road.
We pass Siena heading for Grosseto, on a road that seems to be roadworks for ninety per cent of its length. A lot of landscape, few villages — at least seen from the road. In Grosseto we find a proper pasticceria and pick up some pastries. We are going to friends from Munich who are in Italy at the moment and have rented a house with their family right by the sea — just north of the Argentario, near Albinia, where a fine pine wood is lined with campsites and, in among them, this plot with a handful of houses. And that is where we may stay for the next two nights. Standing under these enormous pines, literally two steps from the sea, is quite something. The family takes us in with great warmth, we meet good people and hear stories worth the journey. In the evening we all watch the sunset together: the sun sinks into the sea behind Elba. The rest of the view is spectacular too — Santo Stefano on the Argentario, the island of Giglio, Montecristo, and on a very clear day apparently even Corsica. The beach is public, but the campsites left and right are so far off that it feels like a private beach for the people of the house — and with all the driftwood washed up there is a certain Robinson Crusoe feeling to it.
