'The sweet spring time had begun, and round about Siena the smiling hills were clothed with leaves and flowers, and the crops were rising in plenty in the fields. Even the pasture land quite close to the town affords an unspeakably lovely view; gently sloping hills, either planted with homely trees or vines, or ploughed for corn, look down on pleasant valleys in which grow crops, or green fields are to be seen, and brooks are even flowing. There are, too, many plantations, either natural or artificial, in which the birds sing with wondrous sweetness. Nor is there a mound on which the citizens have not built a magnificent estate; they are thus a little way out of the town. Through this district the Pope walked with joyous head.' Again and again love of Nature drew him away even in old age from town life and the circle of courtiers and flatterers; he was for ever finding new reasons to prolong his _villeggiatura_, despite the grumbling of his court, which had to put up with wretched inns or monasteries overrun by mice, where the rain came through the roofs and the necessaries of life were scanty.[10] His taste for these beautifully-situated monastic solitudes was a riddle to those around him. He wrote of his summer residence in Tibur: 'On all sides round the town in summer there are most lovely plantations, to which the Pope with his cardinals often retired for relaxation, sitting sometimes on some green sward beneath the olives, sometimes in a green meadow on the bank of the river Aino, whence he could see the clear waters. There are some meadows in a retired glen, watered by many streams; Pius often rested in these meadows near the luxuriant streams and the shady trees. He lived at Tibur with the Minorites on an elevation whence he could see the town and the course of the Aino as it flowed into the plain beneath him and through the quiet gardens, nor did anything else give him pleasure. 'When the summer was over, he had his bedroom in the house overlooking the Aino; from there the most beautiful view was to be seen, and also from a neighbouring mountain on the other side of the river, still covered with a green and leafy grove ... he completed a great part of his journey with the greatest enjoyment.' In May 1462 he went to the baths at Viterbo, and, old man as he was, gives this appreciative description of spring beauties by the way: