Piombino in October - Suvereto and Piombino

On Monday we head inland for a short drive in the countryside beyond Suvereto, stopping at Frassine. The autumn colours of the vineyards interspersed with olive trees are stunning.

For lunch we stop in Suvereto, heading to Da Cinzia which we had tried when we visited in May and enjoyed the zonzelle. This time we are not so lucky. Cinzia seems alarmed to see customers rather than welcoming and the choice of first dishes is only between pasta with tomato and mozzarella or pasta and fagioli. We choose the latter. It turns out to be a tiny portion in a precarious paper bowl. Hmm. I ask for some bread and add some olive oil. Hmmm. We divide a largish portion of very good cheese cake and drink only water. Without even coffee we end up spending 17€. Only I'm not sure whether I've had lunch or not. Rather disconsolately we wander around Suvereto some more 

and then drive to Piombino where we park down the Salivoli end to walk along the sea front.

It could well be that not all days can be splendid even on holiday, it could well be that I'm invariably grumpy on an empty stomach and that Andrea has never been keen on pasta and fagioli anyway, but the Lungomare seems vaguely depressing, several villas block the view towards the sea part of the way, there's traffic to the left and then ghastly apartment blocks in the Via Amendola part. We were expecting too much perhaps? Coffee would help but this is apparently not the sort of place where there are bars along the sea front.

We take a short cut into the historical centre and finally find coffee in an anonymous and grubby bar, at least it's cheap. We continue our walk along the sea front south of Piazza Bovio but the path soon ends in a bit of wood used as a short cut down to the cemetery and for...other things.... well. 

We go back to Piazza Bovio which is really very nice with its excellent views in both directions and of Elba island too, and wander down to the port. From here Piombino is attractive and the seagulls are whirling. 

Nevertheless the limited calories supplied by Cinzia are long exhausted and I go into an irritable and impossible to please "if I don't eat I will faint but there is nothing in this small supermarket I would deign to buy" mode. Eventually I pull myself together and buy a packet of biscuits. We walk back to the car stuffing biscuits and are a little calmer by the time we get there.

I move the car to the Archaeological museum car park and we walk back down to the harbour and Piazza Bovio for the sunset. It's cold and windy but spectacular and I revise my opinion of Piombino back to default..... it's really rather nice from here.....