On a recent visit to friends near Pisa, Pino and I decided to veer off the usual autostrada route for our return trip to Assisi. We had a full day ahead of us so we headed south into the Tuscan countryside toward Volterra passing splendid Tuscan hill towns and surveying vineyards and olive groves.

Remnants of rural architecture of the past were scattered in the landscape. We pulled off the road now and