Barcelona to Rome: Pisa to San Gigminano

A few of us decided to make an earlier start than usual as we wanted to help Harold along the way, given he was unwell. The other advantage of an early start was that getting out of Pisa potentially involved a lot of traffic. We also figured the newbies would take a bit of extra time to get themselves sorted on the first day, especially as some had been up late watching England go down to Wales in the Rugby World Cup.

120km with about 1400m climbing was the order of the day, with a step climb to morning tea and another to lunch in the beautiful old town of Volterra. We stopped inside the old town after riding our bikes up narrow cobbled streets crowded with Sunday tourists. Pizza and gelato filled the hole before we headed off for San Gigminano.

The Tuscan countryside, although very beautiful, is not as green as the fields of Parma and Piacenza which we passed through last week. Nevertheless, there were some lovely, fragrant orchards redolent with fuit. Many hunters, complete with camouflage gear, poke around in the valleys looking for grouse. The odd shot rings out from time to time.

The final leg involved another longer but less steep climb up to the day's high point and shortly after we were rewarded with a downhill run into the finish. That is until you get to the steep ramp up into the old part of town because, as you will recall, the old Italians loved to build on the top of things. Once again we negotiated narrow old cobbled streets to find our hotel in the old walled citadel. Hotel Bel Soggiorno's dining room looks out over the surrounding countryside from a high vantage point.

Dinner was left to us to make our own arrangements. Aaron had found a burger type restaurant which looked good as we are happy to go with a single course and finish early, as opposed to the Italian tradition of stretching the meal out over several courses (and hours). My hamburger turned out to be a 700g slab of beef, cooked blue. Interesting challenge but I was equal to the task. The real reward for the day's effort was the world championship winning gelateria, whose wares we just had to sample on our way back to the hotel to watch Peter Sagan winning the men's road race at the world champs live on TV. A great day.