Italy - Part 2 - San Gimignano

That night just before dark we thought we should stop and ask someone if we could sleep in their field. There were a lot less campgrounds in Italy than France (where everyone else had just been biking) and we were nowhere near one. So we stopped and Alex and Greg went up to a house to ask. When they got back they said the lady had said no but that we should check at an agriturismo just down the road. These things are basically farms that can't support themselves on the land alone so they also run a cheap B&B. She thought they might allow tents. Well we continued along her street when perhaps we were supposed to go up the main road. We ended up in a small town off of our tour route and didn't find the agriturismo.

We set down our stuff in a gravel parking lot after dark and made some pasta for dinner.

We slept in the parking lot but didn't bother setting up tents. Jon said that perhaps we should have one person awake at all times but then he fell asleep with the rest of us.

The parking lot was right next to a well lit, but very overgrown playground.

We woke up early and ate breakfast down the road. Around noon we arrived at Castelfiorentino, a town big enough to have a couple good grocery stores. I waited outside with Gordo and Beth while the others bought some groceries for lunch and more pasta for dinner.


While the guys were inside I walked up onto a nearby bridge to get a look around. When I saw them come out I headed back over to the side of the building where we ate lunch. After lunch we were all set to head out and Gordo, Jon and I biked only as far as across the parking lot.

At the other side of the parking lot no one had followed us. Apparently Beth was trying to decide whether she should hop a train and leave us as she thought she was slowing us down and she wasn't feeling well. Anyways, Gordo, Jon and I hung out beside the road for probably about an hour and played some hacky sac which I suck at.

Later we biked across town to a place near the train station only to wait another hour or so playing cards while Greg and Beth were talking. So then Greg told us they would meet us at San Gimignano, the end of the first day of the tour in the book we were following. Jon, Alex, Gordo and I set out for what was the most elevation gain of the tour.

We kept climbing and just when I thought we were at the top, we'd go up another hill. Around dusk we got to speed down many hills to the base of the hill town of San Gimignano. We had a lot of trouble this night finding a place to sleep again. We ate some pasta after Greg and Beth met us and then biked around looking for a place to stay. There was a campground but it was very expensive, about 75 Euros. It was quite a night, which included Jon and I biking across town three times, and Alex yelling about nuking Tuscany.

We ended up sleeping here, in a parking lot beside a pool about a block from the campground. We found out in the morning that we once again slept next to a playground.

Some olive trees surrounded the playground and overlooked our sleeping spot.

We decided the campground was a good idea if we made it worth it by getting there early so we went there in the morning and took showers, recharged our camera batteries and took siesta (a nap in the afternoon). Then we locked up our bikes and took a local bus into town.

Here's Greg at the aquaduct before filling up his bottle. The water in this town and the campground did not taste very good at all.

We wandered into the historic center castle part and found a good place to eat. We had a delicious meal and mine was an olive and anchovy pizza. Then we got some gelato and wandered the streets some more.

We sat down for a bit along one street and just chilled.

I balanced my camera on a door handle in order to get a crazy group shot. That night we walked back through the darkness to the campground. In the morning we would bike away on the second day of the tour and leave San Gimignano far behind, OR so we thought!