Ride Day 12: Siena to San Gimignano

Many years ago I spent some time in San Gimignano.  I had no money but lots of time and made the most of it.  I have good memories of my time there and it will be interesting to see if what I remember resembles what I see.

I like the idea of doing a theme for the day.  Yesterday was "Under the Tuscan Sun."  Trite.  Today's is "Sleepless in Siena."  One day I will come up with something original but just go with me on this. 

When we met the host of the failed AirBnb in Siena he showed us into the place that we were supposed to have rented.  Just outside of the gates of town, it looked kind of nice inasmuch as it would have been quiet at night (we try to stay outside of city centers to avoid the incessant noise of European cities).  He showed us the plumbing problem: when the neighbors upstairs flushed their toilet, it came showering down on our toilet.  He said it wasn’t a big inconvenience and gave us the option of staying.

The place had an odd odor, so no thanks.  So we took the place that was 500 m away in the center of town.  At least it was a place to stay.  We wandered around town a bit and tried to get an invite to a big bbq at a piazza that looked really good but we were unsuccessful.

Unique lights all over Siena

There's a party going on, but no invitation for us...

The bbq smelled so good...

I think the guy in red put the word out on us

But it was the single noisiest place we have ever stayed.  There was a bar across the street and the noise continued at an unsleepable level until 0430.  Argh.  Lorie got some sleep after that, and I slept until about 0600 but after that it was time to go.

So we loaded up and headed down the road on a beautiful morning.  A short ride today, just under 50 km but with 1000 m of climbing, mostly in the first 20 km.  It warmed up pretty quickly and as soon as we’d crested the first climb we found a nice place to have coffee – not even a village, just a group of houses with a café.  They were restoring the church next door and had what appeared to be a long way to go.

Strade bianca again.  It is super fun to ride and there is absolutely no traffic!

Except the occasional UK hiker bunch; they're so, well, orgainized

Tuscany

A castle every now and then

San Gimignano off in the distance

Our coffee stop for the morning

600 year old building -- like new

700 year old church -- a fixer upper

 We could see San Gimignano, our destination, on the horizon and it gave us inspiration as the little hills rolled under us.  It was a very nice ride on tiny, untraveled roads, with about 15 km of strade Bianca thrown in.  As we approached San Gimignano the road tipped up, as we knew it would, and we reverted back to our theme of “slow and steady.”

We are staying in another Agritourismo just outside of the city proper.  We were greeted by a little dog that looks just like our Risi – except this guy’s ears were down and he was really grumpy whereas Risi would have been wiggling all over.

Risi's doppelganger in Italy.  Except he is a bit of a shit.

 San Gimignano itself is tiny and it sits atop another high hill.  Originally an Etruscan outpost, it thrived in the early millennia AD as a trading route but was pretty devastated by the plague of the early next-century.  The village recovered after that and was relatively prosperous.  Early in the 20^th century some bright local figured out that they can make more money on a Disneyland-type model than agriculture and they ran with it.  Today it is a contrast in history versus economy.  The former is dominated by the beautiful village with its seven towers (I actually counted nine, but I guess that some do not (literally) measure up).  The later dominated by every single cubby hole in the village dedicated to some schmaltzy retail establishment or a café or a bar, or whatever.

All that said, we enjoyed walking around town – it took only about 30 minutes.  After that we had great sandwiches and we paid a king’s ransom for a couple of negronis and spent an hour or two watching the visitors walk by, and a wedding party.

We were super hungry.  Great paninis

Negronis were in order and the wedding party was an extra (though her expression says "Really?, I am doing this?")

Negronis and odd snacks

Is it too late to reconsider?

San Gimignano, around town

San Gimignano, around town

San Gimignano, the main piazza

San Gimignano, around town

We bought some snacks for tonight and hoofed it back to the Agritourismo.  Along the way we got douched by agrichemicals being sprayed by a guy “fogging” his olive trees.  Not to be outdone, a moment later the guy across the road got his fogger going for the pesticides being sprayed on the grapes.  We ran from that onslaught and jumped into the shower to was the Monsanto/Bayer chemi-stew off.

Kills the bugs and us, too? 

I will say this: there must be a huge quantity of agrichemicals being used on olives and vineyards – you can smell it whenever you go by.  Sorry to end on a sour note but we can taste the agrichems.  We had a nice bottle of Sangiovese to get rid of the taste.  Irony?  You decide.

Tomorrow we head a bit up, then a lot dow toward the Tyrrenhian coast to Lucca.  We're looking forward to that walled city with no hills!

Arrivedirci!