Last night we had dinner again at the Rifugio. I had pasta for entree with a simple tomato and cheese sauce, whilst Garth had Riboletta. I had thought that Riboletta was a form of pasta like penne but cut differently. It turned out to be a soup made with bread, legumes and other vegetables. I should mention that we had to order dinner from the menu at breakfast time so that they could prepare the meals. After that we both had a potato omelet very much like a Spanish Tortilla. Quite tasty and very hearty. Garth followed that up with Apple tart for dessert.
During dinner a couple of German guys came in and we had a chat with them. They had come to see (watch?) McLaren cars at some very exclusive hotel (Borgo San Pietro). Apparently the first such event was two years ago at Lake Como. Anyway, nice guys to talk to and a good sense of humour. After dinner we also got talking to an Italian couple whom we had interacted with briefly the previous evening. They had offered us the remains of the bottle of Vino Rosso (obviously mistaking us for alcoholics) and did the same again. It turns out that they live in Florence and were a very nice couple to talk to in a mixture of broken Italian and broken English. We had quite a conversation between them, ourselves, and the German guys.
We had decided to head for Lucca and Pisa today so after breakfast we headed up on a fairly direct route north through country we had traversed on the way to the Rifugio. Navigation as we got closer to Lucca was fairly easy with plenty of signs along the way, although the roads we came in on were fairly narrow and twisty - surprise!
Arriving in Lucca from the south we drove through some of the newer parts before reaching the outside of the old city. Driving around the outside of the old city clockwise we looked for parking and then decided to try our luck inside the old city. We entered via the Porta Elisa and after following the wall along to the left saw some parking dead ahead so made for that. We didn't notice until after parking that we had gone the wrong way down a one way street but we had not inconvenienced anyone and there was no traffic coming the correct way so it panned out Ok.
After parking we set off on foot towards the most interesting parts of the old city to have a good look around. After strolling around and viewing the sights and the old architecture, which is quite similar to Florence, we had a walk along the wall top for a while. As we drove north we had driven through some rain squalls but it was otherwise fine. We had no rain during our walk around Lucca at all. After our wall walk we walked a bit more through the northern, less affluent, end of the old city before finding a restaurant for lunch. We had not pre-ordered diner for tonight as we did not know if we would be back in time. Consequently we had a more substantial lunch. For first course I had Tortelli, meat filled and with a tomatoey and meat sauce and Garth had Pasta with a Gorgonzola sauce. Main course for me was Scallopine alla Limone (escalopes of pork with an olive oil and lemon sauce), and Garth had Coteletta fried and served with chips. His Coteletta was basically a crumbed and fried chicken schnitzel. The meal was good and certainly enough to keep us going for the rest of the afternoon. On the way back to the car I stopped at a Pasticcheria and had a Panino con Prosciutto made up to take back for the evening.
We had not fully committed to 'doing' Pisa but decided to do it anyway before heading back south. We had want to avoid the Autostrada but unfortunately found ourselves driving on it towards Pisa. On leaving it I tendered a €50 note for the tariff which turned out to be €1.70 but the guy did not bat an eyelid. We arrived at the vicinity of the Duomo and the Torre Pendente without incident and found cheap parking nearby - about a 5 minute walk from 'The Tower'.
There were the usual crowds to be expected around the tower and it is certainly an impressive sight, as is the Duomo. As we had arrived from the opposite side of the tower to the one seen in most picture, it was interesting to see the lean from the reverse direction. From where we first viewed it the lean seemed much more pronounced. Strolling around and looking back at the Duomo, it was apparent that part of it had also suffered some sinkage, probably before it was completed. This was something which I had not heard of before so was interesting to see. After imbibing a gelato each we headed back to the car to start our journey back south to the Rifugio.
We had decided to follow a similar route south to the one we used coming north but on the way to join up with that we got shunted on to a fast road which we didn't want. We got off at what we thought was a suitable exit as it was signed to one of the places that would be on our chosen route. Maybe we took a wrong turn or something but we ended up navigating a lot of very narrow streets and semi-rural roads before finally reaching the outskirts of a place that we could find on the map. At this stage we decided to invoke the aid of Karen, the GPS b***h to help us onwards for a while.
We told the GPS to plot a route for us to Castelfiorentino and, from where we were, it was fairly straightforward to get there. Following the GPS we were getting close to Castelfiorentino when we just missed a turn off to the left. At this stage we decided to cancel that plot and ask it to head for Certaldo which was on the route we would take from Castelfiorentino anyway. This involved us continuing on the same road, with no deviations or turns to make, and we found ourselves passing through Castelfiorentino anyway on the way to Certaldo. We still have no idea where 'she' was taking us.
After Certaldo it was a fast run on a good highway to Poggibonsi. The road passed through three fairly major tunnels on the way and tree was not much other traffic at all. After Poggibonsi we headed for Colle de Val d'Elsa before turning to the south west on the road which goes to Grosseto and Folonica. This road goes directly via Montieri and so gave us a good run back to the Rifugio.
All in all it was a good day and we got to see some bits of countryside which we had not intended to but all came out well in the end.
