Category: Uncategorized

Tourists

Up to now we have seen almost no pilgrims and almost no tourists. We were warned that San Gimignano would be touristy but we were not prepared for the extent of it. The streets were mobbed with people. (Above are people in long line to buy “The Best Gelato in the World”. Just across the way was another longer line of people waiting for “The World Champion Gelato”.) I suppose there are pilgrims here, too, but they are not evident in the crush of people. Tuscany is popular and Easter is a big time for trips. We were there yesterday, the day after Easter, which is a school and work holiday. It probably isn’t as crowded today, Tuesday. 

We actually had a taste of it in Lucca. Lucca was not busy because the G7 meeting had closed down the city center, but the place where we had lunch was a prototypical tourist trap. You always order water and always get bottled water. Here was got water in a jug, tap water no doubt but still $2. The parmesan cheese was in packets. The tables were out in the square. The food was pretty bad. We had little choice because of the police blockades shutting off the city but this restaurant was much worse than we had expected. Lesson learned.

4/17 Update

We have had a few busy days with spotty wifi for uploading pictures and a mid-trip slump in will-to-blog. We still don’t have wifi but a few bars had okay wifi and we got our photos through yesterday uploaded.

We spent 4/12 and 4/13, Wed and Thu, in Altopascio in La Loggia which we wrote about. It was nice to have a rest day to catch up on laundry and things.

On 4/14, Friday, we had a nice walk (photos soon) and stayed in an ostello in Ponte Cappiano. We stayed in a room with five beds but it was just us so it was like a huge private hotel room, except the bathroom was down the hall. We read that our ostello was built by one of the Medici of Florence and designed by Leonardo da Vinci. We had a great dinner at a nearby pizza place owned by Marco. We talked with him quite a bit (photos soon).

On 4/15 we started at 6 am and had a nice walk into San Miniato. We have started leaving early because we have had all sunny days and walking in the sun after 10 or 11 is quite hot so we want to minimize that. We had a great lunch at a little place in San Miniato Basso (the lower town) and stay in San Miniato Alto at a very large and pretty Convento di San Francesco (photo above) which is a cross between a hotel and a pilgrim’s hostel. We had a private room with bath but ate with the group. There was a group of four families with about 8 kids who were on a pilgrimage together. Altogether there were about 40 pilgrims, far more than we had seen before.

We had a small crisis that night. The next day was 15 miles which is too long for us. There were a few places to stay in the middle but they were all full or didn’t answer. Things tend to fill up around Easter. We didn’t know what to do. Eventually we were able to schedule a taxi for the next day and that solved the problem.

On 4/16, Easter Sunday, we took a taxi to Gambassi Terme (it took 30 minutes). Gambassi is a typical Tuscan hill town, but without tourists, quite small, there is one small square and that is about it for the old town. But is was a lovely place. We hung out at the bar in the square a lot of the day just watching the people and using their WiFi to upload our photos. We had a “Pasqua” lunch at our hotel which was excellent. We saw a group of about 15 pilgrims pass through that morning and then say maybe 10-15 more during the day. There are a lot more pilgrims in Tuscany.

On 4/17, today, we had a great walk to San Gimignano, the town of towers. Tuscany is impossibly scenic and photogenic, just exactly what your image of it is. We took many, many photos but those will have to wait until we get a good wifi to upload them.