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!
Ok so Alex didn't carry the bags like this but it was funny that they fit well on his pants.
Before we left all the guys got a tattoo drawn on using a black felt. Most of them were done by Beth. Here Alex is doing his angry Italian impersonation.
I was the only one who really needed to walk the bike all the way but it made some sense for the others as otherwise they'd just have to wait for me.
The first stop was the COOP for groceries.
As usual we ate some lunch right after so that we didn't have to pack and keep things cool like yogurt and milk. We had a watermelon for desert which I think is Greg's favourite fruit.
This is the classic Coke Addict photo, very well done by Alex.
After lunch Alex and I walked into the center of town with my bike to look for an information place that would in turn tell us where a bike shop was. I had a chance to take some photos of the place in the daylight.
Alex found out that the bike shop was just across the parking lot from the COOP so we walked all the way back there to it. From the looks of the place it was actually an auto shop that rented out bikes. Alex explained the problem with my wheel to the guy who explained that he couldn't fix it and we'd have to go 11km to the nearest city called Poggibonsi to get it fixed.
This really being our only good option we set out to walk 11 km to Poggibonsi. There was a lot of downhill although that just made it more frustrating to not be able to ride it. The others would often coast down the hill and then wait for me at the bottom. Upon entering the very outskirts of Poggibonsi we were lucky that Beth saw the bike shop across a field. Inside there was a wait for the bike repair people but we watched some music videos while we waited. When it came to my turn Alex explained the problem and the guy got right to work tightening up all the spokes. After this he also fixed the derailer so that the bikes could now go into all gears.
Once again my bike was back in excellent shape and the guy only charged me 5 Euros! In this photo outside the bike shop everyone looks like they've just been shot! After the bike was fixed up we biked back towards San Gimignano to where there was a smaller road we could find a place to camp near. What followed was our first real stealth camping experience. We camped down a small dirt road into the forest that dead ended but was most likely on someone's property. There was some locked boxes there but we figured we were safe because it was already dark and we would leave early. We set up the tents trying to keep quiet and use little light and went to bed without any dinner. In the morning we packed up and moved out pretty quick and biked onto another side road towards our bike tour route.
We stopped on the side of the road for breakfast which was the pasta meant as dinner from the night before. Alex and Jon left us to ride back to the bike store so they could get Jon's biked fixed up. I tried to make the pasta while Gordo ended up helping because he was the real chef of the group. At this spot I found a little plastic brown horse which I gave to Greg and he wore it in his helmet for the rest of the trip.
Eventually Alex and Jon returned and Jon's bike had been fixed up. After we had all eaten and packed up we got back on the road and biked about 8 km to the outskirts of Colle di Val d'Elsa. Along the way we saw a lot of fields of sunflowers of all different ages.
In town we stopped at a small park and bought some cold drinks. We had an early siesta there, relaxing and playing lots of games of Fluxx while Alex was checking out his wheel and trying to figure out why it seemed warped now too. He played with tightening some of the spokes but this didn't seem to help much. Finally he decided he had to go back to the bike shop, so him and I unloaded some of our bike bags and then biked off to the shop while Beth and Greg biked into the center of town to get groceries. The guy was able to fix Alex's bike but he had to jump on it to get it back into shape! We arrived back at the park and after Greg and Beth got there we ate some lunch.
After this we left town once again back on our tour route but quickly left it for a dirt road in the direction of an agriturismo. Unfortunately when we got there the place looked really fancy and they told us they didn't want tents on their land. It was ridiculous because they had lots of land and how could it hurt. We ate some dinner at the base of their driveway while Jon checked out his bike. Dinner was pretty awesome with a lot of lunch meats and cheese in the dark while listening to Alex' wind-up radio-flashlight. That night we slept a little further back down the dirt road just on the side of it in a clearing. We didn't bother setting up the tents.
The next day as we were heading back into Col di Val D'Elsa Jon got a flat tire so Greg, Jon and Alex stayed behind to fix it while the rest of us went back to the same park. Then Gordo and I went into the center of town to get groceries for the day. Alex and Jon arrived while I was watching the bikes outside the store and afterwards we all biked back to the park where we ate some more food. Then finally we were on our way out of town with all our bikes in decent shape, back on the tour route. Part way through day 6 since Florence and barely started day 2 of the tour route.
