The guidebook quotes the walk from San Quirico d'Orcia to Radicofani as 32.3 km with 950m of climbing and 550m of descent. I felt I could probably do this, but it would likely take over 10 hours and I would be unlikely to enjoy it. There is an option to split the walk into two 16 km sections by staying overnight at Gallina, but my efforts to find somewhere to stay had been unfruitful. Gallina is hardly a village; it is more like a cluster of a few houses and buildings! So my thoughts turned to getting a bus to Gallina, and walking from Gallina to Radicofani.

I did not have much success in finding out if there was a bus to Gallina on the internet, so I hoped that when I arrived at Hotel Garibaldi the proprietor would be able to tell me. I asked the question "Is there a bus to Gallina tomorrow?" and got a very simple reply "I don't know!". So at 3-50 p.m. on Friday afternoon I did not have any plan at all for Saturday. I feared I might have to walk all the way!

I walked into town to find a tourist office. There was nothing at the first location I tried, but walking up the main street I spotted an information office. The lady was most helpful when I explained my predicament. Yes, she said," there is a bus at 7-20 a.m. You have the choice of taking it to Gallina, leaving about 16 km to walk, or you could take it to la Bisarca, leaving about 8 km to walk", she added. The bus would be a 54A and would be heading for Piancastagnaio. The next question was where could I catch it? I had already been lost in San Quirico once, and I could imagine missing the bus on Saturday morning when trying to find the bus stop. When I told her that I was staying at Hotel Garibaldi, she said "well in that case it is easy, the bus will stop at the bus stop across the road from Garibaldi at 7-22 a.m. She even showed me on the map where the nearest Tabac was to buy a ticket, and for good measure stamped my pilgrim Credential. She was really helpful and I regret not noting her name.

Chiesa di San Pellegrino

Mentioned as Abricula by Sigeric, Archbishop of Canterbury,the hospice of Briccole was a major resting site along the Via Francigena. Among its guests, Matilda of Canossa, Philippe Auguste, King of France, and Charles d'Anjou's troops in 1288. It was the property of the Viscounts of Campiglia, then San Salvatore's abbey's monks who late in the thirteenth century sold the village and its territory to the Salimbeni family. Late in the thirteenth century, it is mentioned as "Ospitale San peregrini de Obricolis". The church still preserves traces of the Romanesque period such as the masonry work in ashlars at the base and the portal with an architrave surmounted by a rounded arch

The Abbey Path Diverges at This Point

The locality Ricorsi has probably to be identified with Borgo al Formone, as mentioned in a scroll dated 1064, owned by the Abbey of Santissimo Salvatore in Mount Amiata. From this point, on the ancient Francigena path, came off one of the paths during the Middle Age led to the Benedictine Monastery.

The legend says that Charlemagne, while travelling to Rome on the Francigena path, to be crowned Emperor by the Pope on Christmas 800, had to stop because his army was affected by the plague. The soldiers were treated by the monks of the Abbey with a medicinal herb, later called Erba Carlina. The grateful Charlemagne donated a vast territory to the Abbey; from the Mount Amiata summit to the Paglia River.