Certaldo

 Another sunny Saturday in Tuscany- just made for some more exploration. It is hard to go wrong here- whichever direction you strike out you are bound to stumble across something lovely...  This time I had researched a little, and had   chosen the little town of Certaldo, halfway to Florence and reachable with a 35 min. train journey straight northwards from Siena. 

                                                   

It is a small, sleepy town.  Its  modern, unremarkable neighbourhoods  nestle at the bottom of a steep hill, at the top of which sits the lovely little medieval town where its most famous son lived: Boccacio, who is also buried here. I inherited a rather beautiful old illustrated Decameron from my father- This place therefore seemed to provided some remote sentimental connection to him...

The medieval hilltop town can be  reached  by a steep ascent, or rather more fun: by taking a little funicular.  Its charming, narrow streets can be explored in ten minutes,  and there were a few Italian tourists doing just that before we all squeezed into a little sunny garden trattoria for lunch. It was  about the only place open today. Undoubtedly many more places would be open in the summer. 

The main attraction is the 13th century castle:

                       with some rather lovely frescoes in a Loggia in front of the main Facade:

I will continue expanding my research into good places to go on day trips from Siena- it seems a useful thing to do now, before everything starts! The coming week is dotted with important meetings: Paolo will show me his finalized drawings- they have been passed by the engineer. That means we can put the plans in for formal approval by the town council... and if all goes well building can start maybe in May if we can find workers?

Meanwhile, my ties with Mali are still very strong of course: I am hoping to go out in March. The recent unrest seems to have calmed down, and Air France, which had interrupted their flights to Bamako are resuming flights again. Djenne is calm at the moment. The little chicken venture I have entered into with my old barman Mamane seems to be going from strength to strength. Here he is with the current generation of chicks which he believes will be ready to sell in 20 days, Inchallah!