July 24-27: Tuscany 2

We had booked a rustic little B&B in the middle of nowhere in central Tuscany, which seemed like an appropriate way to relax for a few days, but first we had to go via Siena. Despite its many grand Gothic buildings and its huge central piazza, Siena was a mild disappointment, largely because of its filthy streets. However, we did see an incredible documentary about the Palio, a bi-annual horse race held in the cobblestone piazza featuring ten horses, ten jockeys and no rules. Each horse represents a segment of the town, and to win the Palio (by being the first to complete three laps of the piazza) has great religious significance. The film features a priest blessing the local team’s horse with holy water, inside a packed cathedral.

It was late afternoon when we arrived at our B&B in Pietrafitta. Our hostess greeted us warmly and escorted us to our rustic room. I asked about the advertised free wifi, only to be advised that it probably would not work, unless I knew how to fix it. And she didn’t like my chances, since her computer engineer son-in-law had had little success just a couple of weeks ago. Summoning all my nerd powers, I managed to successfully uninstall and re-install the router, in Italian no less. She was ecstatic. “Ah! It’s a miracle! Mario, Mario!” she cried, clapping her hands and calling her husband. “It’s great! Now I can move around and use the internet! It’s wonderful!”

A room with a view.

We spent our time in Pietrafitta taking a holiday from the holiday: no scheduled activities, just eating well, drinking the odd glass of Chianti, watching the sun go down, reading and lounging around the property. And using the free wifi, of course. It was a great way to turn 29.

A happy diner.

Birthday boy with birthday lamb chops.



Our B&B. Not our car.

July 21-23: Tuscany 1

Tuscany: green undulating meadows, sunflower fields, giant bales of hay, cloudless blue skies, twisting country roads, castles, villas, wine, wild boar, porcini … the very best of Italian rural life. It would make a good backdrop for a movie.

We arbitrarily decided to commence our Tuscan adventure in San Gimignano, the medieval Manhattan. In earlier times the fortress village boasted over 70 huge towers. Now, only 13. In fact, San Gimignano’s greatest claim to fame is probably the guy who runs the village gelateria. He was part of Italy’s 2006 “World Champions Of Gelati Making” team. His establishment boasts written and photographic endorsements from Tony Blair, Thorpey, and Russian philosopher Oleg Solzhenitsyn. Needless to say, we visited several times. Despite not booking in the height of summer, the tourism office (conveniently located next to the gelati place) found us a room let out by an elderly Italian man who spoke no English and barely made it up the stairs of his own property.

Buoyed by the ease with which our adventure had begun, we set out the next day hoping for some beach-related activities. Mistake. The beaches were either hopelessly overcrowded or covered in dirty pale seaweed (which hasn’t stopped us before). Not only that, we found no accommodation despite 11 attempts. Dejected, we decided to try and head for a more remote location. We ended up in an industrial city/hole 50 km away, with the sun setting and no place to stay. Fortunately we discovered a no-frills hotel, and it was there that I realised I had left the camera uplink cable in San Gimignano. It was the culmination of a foul day, one that could not be rectified by watching Numb3rs in Italian.

The following day we decided not to take easy-to-find accommodation for granted any longer, and returned to little San Gimignano, and the world’s best gelati, where the elderly Italian man’s wife had faithfully kept my mysterious cable in her kitchen. We spent the rest of the day booking places for the rest of our spontaneous Tuscan adventure, and bludging in our new favourite Italian fortress village.

July 18-20: Florence

After an overnight stay in mega-touristy Pisa (yes, the Leaning Tower, possibly the most overpriced engineering mishap ever), we ended up in Florence. For some reason, possibly due to a Europe-wide heat wave, Florence was unbearably hot. Almost Egyptian hot. And also extremely full of tourists, almost all of whom seemed to be American and sweaty.

How original.

Florence is all about the Renaissance, and we took in two of its most famous galleries. The Galleria dell’Academia is home to “the world’s most famous statue”, Michelangelo’s David. Although it was quite awe-inspiring to see it (him?) for the first time in all its/his glory, it was somewhat more fun to sit and watch the dozens of tourists hoping to outfox the security guards and try to sneak a photo of the statue. The security guards were ruthlessly harsh on anyone with an exposed camera, accusing all and sundry of photographic piracy. We also visited the Uffizi, Florence’s largest and most lavish collection of Renaissance art, which was both a marathon venture as well as being outrageously expensive.

Vicky with replica of David.

Modesty police.

The architectural jewel of Florence is the Duomo, a large cathedral with an impressively huge dome. We would have glossed over this if not for the free tours led by expat Brits who gave the talks with such over-the-top passion that we did it three times (we were pre-empting the jokes and surprises at the end).

The Duomo.

Despite all of these visual treats, the greatest excitement came upon leaving Florence, when Vicky picked up her reserved copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and Limmy picked up the hire car, and we hit the road for our totally-improptu 7 day road trip through Tuscany.

Our hire car (joke).