---
title: 'The Long Climb North'
date: '2026-09-04 15:00'
template: entry
published: true
hero_image: ''
lat: 43.077
lng: 11.678
location_city: "Val d'Orcia"
location_country: Italy
weather_temp_c: 23
weather_desc: Partly cloudy
---

Today was the hardest day. The route from Sorano to the Val d'Orcia crosses the eastern slope of Monte Amiata, which sounds manageable on a map and is not manageable at all. By noon we had climbed eleven hundred metres. By two we were somewhere above Seggiano in thin cloud, the views long gone, legs complaining in a language that had become very specific. Then the cloud lifted and the Val d'Orcia was simply there below us: pale roads, dark cypress, the whole thing exactly as advertised. Sometimes the landscapes that have been photographed to death are still worth arriving at.
