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: 

’The road by which he made for Sorianum was at that time of the year delightful; there was a tremendous quantity of genista, so that a great part of the field seemed a mass of flowering yellow, while the rest, covered as it was by shrubs and various grasses, brought purple and white and a thousand different colours before the eyes.  It was the month of May, and everything was green.  On one side were the smiling fields, on the other the smiling woods, in which the birds made sweet harmony.  At early dawn he used to walk into the fields to catch the exquisite breeze before the day should grow hot, and gaze at the green crops and the flowering flax, which then, emulating heaven’s own blue, gave the greatest joy to all beholders....  Now the crows are holding vigil, and the ringdoves; and the owl at times utters lament with funeral note.  The place is most lovely; the view in the direction of Siena stretches as far as Amiata, and in the west reaches Mt.  Argentarius.’

In the plains the plague was raging; the sight of the people appealing to him as to a god, moved him to tears as he thought how few of the children would survive in the heat.  He travelled to a castle charmingly placed on the lake of Bolsena, where ’there is a shady circular walk in the vineyard under the big grapes; stone steps shaded by the vine leaves lead down to the bank, where ilex oaks, alive with the songs of blackbirds, stand among the crags.’  Halfway up the mountain, in the monastery of San Salvatore, he and his court took up their quarters.