Colle di Val d’Elsa, Tuscany, Italy, Friday, September 21, 2012

Tuscan Countryside

Today we travel to a few small hill towns in Tuscany. We will test the Italian train and bus system in this area. First we catch the train from Lucca to Pisa, then Another train from Pisa to Empoli, where we switch again to Poggibonsi. From there we are catching a bus to San Gimignano. The train connections although short by Italian standards all go without a hitch. When I bought the tickets from the automated machine, it installs confidence in you by giving you a warning that your connections are less than 15 minutes(ours were 9 and 12). We buy our bus tickets for San Gimignano at the Tabacchi shop in the Poggibonsi train station. The 40 minute wait goes by fast with a lady from England stopping to ask if I speak English. Do I look Italian? She is trying to buy a bus ticket from the train machine which isn’t working so I point her to the Tabacco shop. The bus departure board has our bus leaving at the same time as another bus. The weird thing is they both have the same bus #130 displayed with one going to Siena and one going to San Gimignano and both leave from bus area 1. Great work by the Italian scheduler, Please use caution! The first bus to arrive is not ours and we confirm that the second one is.

San Gimignano in Full Pack

So we are on our way to the small hill town of San Gimignano, whose walls were built in the 13th century with gates to regulate who came and went. Most walled city had gates which are really stone arches which either had doors in them or drawbridges. There used to be 72 towers of which only 14 still remain. The towers like in Lucca were built by the wealthy as protection from enemies as well as each other because the families in the town often feuded among themselves. In 1348, the plague cut the population from 13000 to under 4000 and the good days were over. Florence took over the town, tore down most of the towers and directed the trade route elsewhere. Part of the reason the town is well preserved is because nobody much cared about it after it became poor in the 14th century.

Maltese Cross Pilgrim Aid Station

We head up through the gate up a street full of tourists with shops selling typical Tuscan products for you to buy. We pass the old wall of a 12th century pilgrims shelter and continue into the main square, Piazza Della Cisterna. A system of pipes drained roof water into a cistern at the bottom of the well in the town center. From here, you can see many of the remaining towers and the old Duomo. Some of the towers have been dated around 900-950. The towers ground floor door typically supported the merchants store, next floor warehouse, ( holes in the walls to support balconies and exterior wooden stairways above), and then the families living quarters. Heavy defendable stone below, cheaper brick on the stories above.

CNC San Gimignano

We walk from the Piazza to a hillside park where the crowds thin out considerably. We climb a small tower which gives us commanding views of the city and Sant Agostino church where we are headed. We can also see the surrounding Tuscan hills with grapevines, olive, and cypress trees. We meander down to the church which is closed but the walk was pleasant. Our full packs do make the stairs and inclines tougher but we make it back to the square with one quick stop for a slice of pizza. We eat the pizza in the Duomo square and then stop around the corner on our way out of town. Why do we stop? Because, Carol read that the gelato place here won the world cup of gelato. I did not even know that had a world cup of gelato, and have to wonder how often they have to replace the gelato ball during a game. Sounds like a sticky mess to me. We each get a three flavor cone and now we can rest easy knowing we have had the best gelato in the world!

What’s Your Story?

One other quick mention about San Gimignano and that would be, what is up with the standing straight guys with their peni’s hanging out. We encountered several of these statues, one in the main Piazza, one just outside the wall, and even see one on top of one of the towers. We are not quite sure what this was all about so it will have to be further researched as to the story behind them. Time to leave San Gimignano.
We wait for the 2:20 bus to Colle Di Val D’elsa which arrives promptly at 2:39. It is a nice ride down the winding roads of Tuscany and when we reach Colle, the stops are not marked well, so when we stop at a bigger stop, I ask if it is via Bilenci and it’s time to get off. We picked this town because there is a bus that leaves from here direct to Volterra and we were not sure if we would be able to catch a bus there today after visiting San Gimignano. I have a photo of a map to the hotel in the IPad and we know what street we are on. Trying to orient which side of the street we are on and whether to go left or right down the street proves interesting. There are no other visible street signs and my radar says go right so we start walking. We pass a circle which if it is the circle on our map means we have gone to far. The map is in my pack as I don’t like walking around with the IPad looking like I don’t know what I’m doing, so instead we walk confidently, not knowing what we are doing! I think if we go down a side street we will hit a street called Via Roma which was near the hotel, so we walk down Via Don Mizzoni, probably named after the local mafia leader. Lo and behold, we don’t hit via Roma but see Via Oberdan which is the street our hotel is on. Walking up it a short distance we find the hotel. As it turns out, when we got off the bus we were on the end of a Piazza and the hotel is one block from the other end of the Piazza which was not labeled as such on my map. It was a nice short circle tour and calorie burner.

Quiet Colle Di Val D’Elsa

We check in trying to confirm the bus schedule information we have to Volterra as there was no information at the bus stop. The girl tries to help and says it leaves at 0800, when we had 0945. She tells us there is a TI in the Piazza that has more current information so we drop the packs in our room and head over there. The lady there speaks great English and is very helpful. The bus does leave at 0945, the 0800 time is on the weekends only. This is good as we can sleep in a little and have breakfast. There are only 3 buses a day to Volterra and they are about 4 hours or more apart so it was important to make the one we chose as the next one was the last one and we don’t like the no room for error aspect of it. We go across the square to the Tabacchi shop and buy our tickets and the issue is resolved.

Tunnel To Elevator

We decide that since we are here, to visit the old upper town, of the city. Normally, upper old town would imply a lot of uphill walking, but the check in girl told us about a public lift that takes you up to the old town. That made the decision to check it out so much easier. We walk a few blocks from the hotel and go into an old tunnel following the lift sign. It is very interesting and after about a tenth of a mile there are two elevators. We are whisked up to the top and get out on a small square with a nice view of the lower town and the surrounding hills. As we start to walk through the streets, we immediately notice the lack of people. We see one other tourist couple and some locals but it is so nice and quiet compared to San Gimignano. We stroll down the main street, explore a little church, stop at several small parks with overlooks, and cross under an old port. We continue past a square where they are setting up for a party later at 0800, that we are considering coming back for. there is another church with nice art and an old crypt that we explore.

Colle at Sunset From Room

We check out a restaurant and pass another old gate to a main car street, walk along that and turn back down another street towards the old town. We pass a park where some older Italians are having spirited conversation about important events, or at least that is my take. We also pass some beautiful private gardens filled with flowers, one of which is very intriguing and that I have not seen before. We really enjoy the quiet walk through this unexpected slice of Italy and are glad we made the effort to come up to the old town.
We are quite tired so we settle on take out pizza for dinner and we find a nice place around the corner from the hotel to order a couple of pies. One has artichokes, olives, and ham and the other was just cheese. We eat in the room and relax before bed. Colle Di Val D’elsa has been a very pleasant stop and more than just the way station we thought it would be.
CNC
“One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time”- Andre Gide
Expenses
16.40E- 2 train tickets Lucca to Poggibonsi
4.10E- 2 bus tickets Poggibonsi to San Gimignano
5E- 2 slices pizza Ricca Pizza in San Gimignano
5E- 2 gelatos Dondoli Gelato in San Gimignano Gelato World Cup Winner
5.40E- 2 bus tickets San Gimignano to Colle Di Val D’elsa
11.50E- 2 pizza Dinner from La Venezia Pizzeria Ristorante
73E- Hotel La Vecchia Cartiera

Miles Walked- 8.5 Miles