Creepy convent - Pratovecchio, 1 and 2 May

Bar Centrale, Pratovecchio. All the old geezers hang out here; there is another bar on the other side of the square for young blokes and couples.

Said goodbye to Marzia and Toni at Arezzo. It's another national holiday, so the train up to Pratovecchio was substituted by a bus. Thank Marzia for looking this up on the computer for me; I would have been waiting at the station for a train that never came. Arrive in Pratovecchio about 1.30, convent quite forbidding. The nuns here are enclosed Dominicans, so I will probably see little of them. The weather is cold and raining, and because of the holiday all is deserted, which is eerie in an Italian town, usually so full of life. Supermarket opened at 4.00 though, so was able to get some food. Pray for better weather tomorrow.

My convent

2 May: The convent is very spartan, and I couldn't find my breakfast in the refectory, it was so dark in there. I did get a cup of tepid macchiato from the machine, and finished my cheese and bread from last night. Not a soul to be seen or talked to, their enclosure is absolute and they seem afraid of contamination from the outside world. I can have supper with the nuns, but fear I am not holy enough. My language skills are not good enough either, though they probably eat in silence. The weather continues gloomy, and so does my mood. In the afternoon, I dodged the showers and walked up to Pieve della Romena, a well-preserved Romanesque church about 2ks away up on the hill. I enjoyed the walk, and the church is blessedly un-tampered with. The decorations have been kept simple and minimal, so that the beauty of the architecture speaks clearly. Up in these remote places, far from the money and power of the Papacy, you can really feel what medieval faith and life was like.

An old house is hidden in the cypresses.

On the way up, there was a terrific clap of thunder, so loud that I thought someone was dynamiting up at the old castle above me, and expected chunks of masonry to come flying through the trees.

The hill-town of Poppi in the distance

Church of Pieve della Romena - 9th or 10c I think

Almost looks like a set from "Game of Thrones"

Small alabaster window

View of the church across the meadow. Pratovecchio means "old meadow", I wonder if this is it.

Old house

On the way back I stopped and fossicked around an old house that was for sale. Someone had started to renovate but it would be such a big job. I fantasised that it was mine; I would open a BandB, and call it La Pazza Straniera - The Crazy Foreign Woman.

This is the Arno, here small and wild.

Little vegetable plots by the river, I love that Italians love to grow things and use tiny spaces to do so.

It's raining again now. And my foot hurts like hell. And I've got nothing to read but Portrait of a Lady. Again. Sometimes travel sucks; you wonder why you do it.