Italy 2007 Day 9: San Gimignano, coastline and Pisa

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Today we rented a car and saw a bit of the Tuscan countryside and coastline. Sheila and Matt weren't interested in the rental car so they were out the door by 7am on a train bound for Bologna. The other four of us got off to a relatively early start as well leaving the villa by 8:15. We once again had breakfast at Michelangelo before the 20 minute (or so) walk to the Thrifty Car Rental office. There is something strange about addresses in Florence. There appears to be two different sets of addresses on every street. You'll see them counting up 17, 19, 21 followed (often in a different color) by 131, then 23, 25 and 135. We thought maybe the /R we see at the end of many addresses is some kind of a hint about which set of addresses to follow, but we haven't been able to figure out the pattern and were a little bit confused about where the rental car office was on the street we were on.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter. After we found the place (we only walked past it once), we had no problem picking up the car and heading out of town. Driving in Italy (I was the only driver) is quite an experience. It has many of the same elements as driving in Boston: poor, unmarked roads (including lots of rotaries), drivers who take many traffic laws as merely "suggestions" and a surprising amount of traffic (especially for a city whose center is supposed to be "car free"). The one added complication in Florence: scooters. These things zip in and out of traffic at will with even less regard for the traffic laws than the rest of the vehicles on the road. As we were waling around the past few days, scooters have come close to running us over on several occasions. Trying to keep track of all the scooters (especially when driving through rotaries) was quite a challenge, but I managed to make it out of town without hitting anyone!

Our car for the day is called a SmartCar ForFour. We've seen tiny little SmartCars for two all over town. This is a slightly larger version with a back seat and room for four (small) people. Surprisingly enough, it was actually an automatic, though I really hated the transmission. It was hard to put it in reverse and the shifting between gears was extremely rough. In spite of this, the car served its purpose and got us where we wanted to go today (and then some).

Our first destination of the day was San Gimignano. IMO, the most impressive thing about this town was the view you have as you approach it (though I didn't get a picture of this since I was driving). Like most towns in this area, it is built up on top of a hill. There are something like 14 towers scattered throughout town that make it quite a site. You have to park your car in lots outside of town and walk in. This actually made it kind of nice to walk around town since there wasn't any traffic. After a stop at a bar on the main square for a quick cappuccino (Aimee hadn't slept well and needed a pick-me-up), our first stop in town was the cathedral (aka Duomo). It's a church. There were lots of frescoes depicting things like the Last Judgment, scenes from the bible and all of that stuff. It all begins to look the same after a while. This church (as nice as it was) was the start of the "looking the same" process for me -- though I am glad we stopped in for a visit.

Next up, we climbed to the top of the main tower in town. The grated floors of the steps on the way up allowed you to look all the way down to the bottom. I thought this was kind of neat, but someone who is afraid of heights would probably not be quite as big of a fan. There was a good view once you got to the top. You could see the entire town as well as the countryside for miles around. Quite nice, but it would have been even better if it weren't so cloudy, overcast and somewhat chilly today. This kind of weather is becoming a bit of a theme for the trip! Entrance to the tower also got you into a small museum. There was the standard religious fare as well as a room with frescoes depicting a bride and groom on their wedding night. The various scenes showed them taking a bath together and then hoping into bed. What I couldn't figure out is why there was a third, fully clothed, chamber-maid looking woman in the room as the bride was lying in bed naked!

Anyway, San Gimignano was nice and we probably could have had lunch and done some shopping there, but we decided to take advantage of the rental car and head towards Volterra. This is probably a good a place to describe the roads of Tuscanny. Tiny. Twisty. Steep. Those are all good words to describe them. Steve was a huge fan, always encouraging me to go faster and really push the SmartCar to its limits. On the other hand, Aimee gets motion sickness pretty easily and would probably have been happy to see me slow it down even more. Rooney was busy navigating while I was just trying to get us where we wanted to go safely. It all seemed to work out. We had a pretty good lunch at a Pizzeria/Osteria on the side of the road just before we got to Volterra.

Volterra is another town built on top of a hill (surprise, surprise). It's not as impressive looking as you approach it as San Gimignano, but it also seems less touristy and has just as nice of a view. We didn't really see any sites here. Just took some pictures of town, stopped in a shop where I bought a couple of alabaster candle holders and visited a park next to what we assumed was an old fortress. That indeed is probably what it used to be but we were surprised to read that it now serves as a jail. Quite an impressive location to be imprisoned though none of us followed through on our threat to do something wrong so we could see what the view looked like from inside the jail!

Next up, I suggested we drive to the coast and check out a beach. We set a course for Cecina and our first stop was an unexpected one. At the bottom of one of the dozens of switchbacks we drove on today, a police man waved me down and started speaking to me in Italian. I told him (in Italian) that I didn't speak the language so he asked (in English) me for my license and registration. As he was looking them over, I was thinking "Oh shit" and wondering if it was a good idea to bribe an Italian police officer. Meanwhile, Aimee was worrying how she was going to explain the fact that her passport was in my pants (I was carrying it in my money belt all week) and thinking about all of the paperwork she would have to fill out back home if we were arrested. Fortunately, none of that came to pass and they let us go with a rather lame warning about how, in Italy, you were supposed to drive with your lights on all the time. I have no idea why they stopped us, but everything worked out just fine.

We made it to Marina di Cecina without any further incidents. It had the same feel as just about any other beach town in the world. Even though it was warmer down at sea level (especially when the sun peaked through), it was still a chilly March day and the town was pretty deserted. I doubt anyone would have followed through on the skinny dipping suggestion even with warmer weather! As it was, we settled for sticking our hands in the water, taking some pictures and having some pretty mediocre gelato from a place on the main strip in town.

After this, someone suggested we have dinner in Pisa and Aimee replied that idea sounded kind of "sexy" so we had to do it. We spent the next hour or two driving up the coast through towns such as Vada, rosignano and Castigliooncello. Something interesting we noticed about the road signs: as you entered a town, there was a sign telling you the town's name. That is not remarkable. The interesting part is that when you leave town, there is another sign with the town's name and a red slash through it. Kind of a neat way to let you know where you've been!

Upon arrival in Pisa, we got lost. We could not figure out how to transfer our location from our highway map onto any of the local maps we had in the car. After about 20 minutes of doing this, we realized we should just stop near a landmark, find it on the local map and then just go from there. Once we finally did this, we found our way to the tower, parked the car on what looked like a residential side street hoping it was legal and walked up to the main plaza with the church and famous tower. It was too late to go into the tower, but we spent a few minutes taking some goofy pictures "pushing over" or "holding up" the tower. A Chinese couple was intrigued by this and came over to look at the pictures. I thought they were trying to steal my backpack but was happy to see that was not the case.

Since we've noticed restaurants in the tourist areas tend to be pricey and often not very good, we walked a few blocks away in search of a place to eat. Unfortunately, this rule of thumb failed us tonight. Though it was relatively cheap, tonight's meal was also pretty bad. I don't even know the name of the Osteria we ate at, but this is just one of the reasons dinner in Pisa was not quite as "sexy" of an idea as we thought it would be!

While I'm glad we stopped in Pisa, I think the brief time we spent there was enough. The tower was OK. The church looked nice. I didn't see anything else I felt I just had to visit. This was a good way to "do Pisa" and, fortunately, the rental car was where we left it without a ticket on it. We found our way back to the highway and headed towards Florence. Steve was in kind of a weird mood for this part of the trip. He spent a lot of time encouraging me to "open it up" on the Autostrada and not let that BMW pass me like that. Aimee and Rooney kept reminding him there was precious cargo on board and we didn't have to be the fastest car on the road. I just let the SmartCar do what it could.

We made it to Florence without difficulty but once again had trouble finding where we were on the local map. The Pisa landmark rule was tougher to apply, but we eventually figured it out (after 45 minutes of meandering) and stopped to put gas in the car. That was a bit of an adventure requiring the help of a local to figure out how to use the case collection machine. We left the car at the rental car garage (20 euro for the night) and walked back to the villa. By the time we got there, it was after midnight. I was exhausted and went straight to bed.