Bella Italia Stage 8

Lucca to San Gimignano

Strava: 89.9 km, 1,364m, 5:23, 436 shifts

Amazing! I slept soundly all night, again! This time I used earplugs which helped, now that I have real ones. After packing up and eating the little food we had, and we rode off through the wet streets to the café for breakfast.

We took part of a lap around Lucca on the bike path on the wall, then followed our gravel route. At first it was on wet paved roads, busy with cars and trucks on a Monday morning. But soon, we were off on small roads, then tracks and trails. For quite a bit of the time we were on the Canterbury to Rome to the bottom of Italy hiking path – the Via Francigena. Lots of it is quite rough, “paved” with big rocks. All the rain yesterday and last night left lots of mud and puddles.

We stopped in Fucecchio for snacks and drinks and to fix Andrew’s tire. We bought a spare tire but managed to fix his too. We continued on and eventually took a side trip to the town of Castelfiorentino for lunch. We found a nice Osteria and ordered massively, something like 10 drinks and two lunches each. All that steep climbing and riding on grass and mud makes for big appetites. It was such a good deal and so friendly that I left them a ★★★★★ review on Google.

Back on the track we continued, mostly off road. I think the distance today was maybe half dirt, half paved but the time was probably two-thirds dirt. The last 20 km had some pretty wild trails, super skinny and steep single tracks, long periods cranking up massive hills in 38×52 (my extreme granny gear). We got lost once and had to backtrack a skinny trail with sharp thorns grabbing us. We were all (of course except Wytze) getting tired as we finally approached San Gimignano. The numbers just do not tell the story of today’s ride. We rode up to town and through the main street to the top but it was so crowded it was disheartening. We tried to stop for beers but that was not even on. So we coasted down about one km to our apartment.

This was our best lodging yet: four bedrooms each with giant beds, fancy furniture, a nice kitchen, etc. For a very low price. We started the laundry and showers while our hero Wytze rode off to a store and bought a backpack full of beer, chips, fruit and nuts, plus a big melon just because. This kept us entertained until 7 when restaurants open. We walked back up and tried a place below the town with only one customer. It turned out to be great and after appetizers we each had amazing gourmet pizzas. Plus wine and liters of acqua frizzante.

We walked up to the top of town after, marvelled at the views of the towers, and had gelato at a store that said “Best gelato in the world.” This was 20m from another shop that sold “The most famous gelato in the world.” Marketing genius or something. Ours was delicious but expensive too. We walked back home, I wrote this, and we get to do it all over again tomorrow.