At the end of my all too short stay in Tuscany I had decided to climb to the 16th century monastery on the hill overlooking the Villa where we had spent the past couple of weeks.  The weather had been beautiful, early summer sun with warm days and cooler nights.    From the tree lined avenue below, the monastery was perched in the rack strewn hills above.   The structure, imposing as it was, overlooked a vast tract of the country side.  Having the purpose as a watch tower for the Villa below when it had been the residence of two popes during the 17th century.  I myself was sleeping the papal guards accomodation, cool terracotta floors and low ceilings high above the dusty road below.  On my first evening I had been locked in the estate all alone. Alone, there was an almost ear shattering silence as the evening approached.  That evening I had wandered through the classically Florentine gardens, and olive groves of the estate.  Having been told the approximate location I managed to walk the original tract of the famous Paleo horse race before it had been moved to cobble stones of Sienna.  But I still wanted to climb the hill to the monastery. According to the staff at the Villa the resident monks used to climb the nearly three hundred and fifty steps on their knees and in doing so paying penance to god to absolve their sins.