Tuscany

 Tuscany

 Our trip through Italy will be a mishmash of Emails that didn't get lost and stories told from memories. The next installment is the original email including the date it was sent.

From: Hicken, Garry
Sent: Sunday, April 24, 2011 4:42 PM
Subject: Old towns

Hello all

 I would like to give you my idea of irony . It’s Saturday night ,I’m in Florence , one of the cultural capitals of the world . Art , culture , sophistication . Love ( amour ) is everywhere . At 6:10 in the evening Joani and I are sitting ……wait for it….. in a Laundromat washing our clothes . Now seriously ,is that irony or what ? Just so you know I am not a complete loser I will tell you that I am taking Joani out for a nice dinner later ,but we both thought that the other patrons in the restaurant would appreciate if we showed up in clean clothing. But this email is not to talk about Florence because I haven’t told you about our adventures in the land of Towers and Billy goats . To be more exact, San Gimignano and Certaldo . Our hotel for our time there was in Certaldo , which as it turned out was a booking error on our part . All along we meant only to visit San Gimignano . This is a very small but renowned town in central Tuscany, famous for their medieval towers that were some of the only ones of their kind left standing after the bombings of WWII .But when we booked with Hotels .com we specified that we wanted to be within one kilometer of the train station . What we didn’t know was that there was no train station in San Gimignano . The closest train station was in Certaldo .When we saw this while booking we just thought it was a suburb. Wrong!! We got to Certaldo only to find that the buses only ran between the two towns at morning and evening rush hour . We only had the one day planned and we couldn’t wait for the evening bus and even if we did we wouldn’t get back. The hotel concierge suggested a Taxi and told us she would call and get a cost. We found out it would cost us 40 euro ( 60 Canadian ) for a two way taxi trip which was costly considering the train ride from Siena only cost us 7 euro. Well you can understand our cause for pause. The concierge was very nice and told us that instead, we could just take a trip into the older part of Certaldo which was also very old but less touristy and why don’t we consider that  while we unpacked and cleaned up and if we still wanted to go to San Gimignano she would call us a taxi. When we got to the room Joani ( who remains the best wife a man could have) said ,why spend 40 euro, Certaldo would probably be just as good . On the other hand I thought that San Gimignano was one of the things that she had found out about when we were first planning Italy ,I knew she really wanted to see the medieval towers and 40 euro was just about what we would have paid for an airport Limo . So when we went to the lobby I said to Joani .” I don’t think we’ll be back in Italy anytime soon “ And asked the concierge to call us a cab. While we were waiting for our taxi, this nice concierge explained that if we were not leaving too early in the morning , we could spend the evening exploring San Gimignano, and in the morning, see the old part of Certaldo . Apparently we could walk the whole town in 2 or 3 hours .We had a plan .The taxi driver showed up and turned out to be another very nice person who tried in broken English to give us some information about the countryside as we drove along and at the gates to Certaldo promised us that he would be back promptly at 9:30 pm to pick us up at the same gate . I might have worried about whether or not he intended to return except for the fact that he wouldn’t accept any money for the trip there.

 From the minute we walked beyond Porto San Mateo, the entry gate into the town we were thankful we had come . We were immediately transported into what was a magical town with small streets ,roadside cafes , and of course the aforementioned towers .The tallest one was open to the public , and we spent 15 minutes climbing 20 or more flights of stairs to the top of this tower .The last part of the climb was a ladder that went through a tiny little hole just slightly wider than my shoulders which opened into  a bell tower room with an incredible view of the whole town . Joani and I both have vertigo so you can imagine how tough it was .But the feeling of conquest and amazing view made it well worthwhile .

 We topped the day off with an amazing dinner at an outdoor café ran by two sisters that we chatted with , Joani exchanging dessert recipes with one, while the other gave me a couple of postcards with an actual picture of the café and one of the sisters out front waiting a table. It was a magical day , the taxi driver showed up promptly at 9:30pm as promised and when he dropped us safely off at our hotel , I never even gave a second thought of whether it was worth the 40 euro taxi ride. On   the contrary ,with his extreme friendliness and promptness as well as feeling flush from having such an amazing day ,I  tipped him another 5 euro and we went to our room wondering what magic tomorrow would bring .

I know this email is getting long, you’re getting bored, and our laundry is almost done so I will keep the story of Certaldo short .

 We woke up in the morning knowing that we had a few hours to kill after breakfast because our train ride to Florence would only take 40 minutes and we couldn’t check in before 2 pm . So we decided to follow through with our plan to visit the upper old town . Now what I haven’t told you is that it is called the upper old town for a reason .The lower town is called the newer part because it had only been settled since the 1700’s ! (Imagine , over three hundred years old here is still considered recent and not worth considering.) There actually is a tram you can ride to the old town sort of like a ski lift ,for a reason . Old town was built on a mountaintop . But as most of you know ,both Joani and I have ran marathons so we weren’t scared . We should have been !  Halfway up we were both panting and wondering what we had got ourselves into. What a climb .No shortage of exercise since we got to Italy . But again it was so worth it .This was another very old town with narrow streets , small alleys , hidden doorways and family crests everywhere . But unlike the other 2 we had been to , this one was almost completely untouched by tourism . Original families still lived in old houses that would have been turned into tourist shops in the other towns we had visited .We were walking along constantly seeing people out sweeping their front stoops and tending their gardens ,looking at us as if we aliens . Of course we were foreigners walking by the front of their houses . In some ways I imagine it would be great living in a town 1000 years old . But the constant parade of people walking by, staring into your backyards and kitchen windows like voyeurs must be a little wearing if you were born and brought up there and this was the only home you ever knew. We spent a few hours walking around this old town in amazement , negotiated our way back down the mountain to our hotel , Checked out and caught the next train to Florence . Our original booking error that put us overnight into a hotel in a town we never would have heard of, turned out to be a very pleasant mistake . We ended up exploring 2 medieval towns for the price of one and got some serious exercise to boot . But the way it is going  I will be going back to work to rest from my vacation. The photos are all of Certaldo and San Gimignano ,but in no particular order . It's a guessing game . Can you spot the difference ?

Next stop Florence

Arrivederci

Garry