Some quick details:  We leave tomorrow,  8/6 for Florence,  spend 3 days there, then take the train to Lucca, Italy.  On Monday,  8/12, we start the walk to Rome, 250 miles and about 3 1/2 weeks of walking.  If you have really good eyesight, here’s a map of our journey:

All we have to do is connect the dots! Simple enough?!

Now, for the bags:  For this Camino we could not find a service to ship a suitcase to our final destination (Rome) and hold it until we get there. It’s more than just a nicety of fresh clothes at the end if the rainbow, it’s actually a necessity. Hiking poles are not allowed in carry on luggage and we do not want to put our backpacks into checked baggage. What to do?

We ended up buying a small suitcase at a Thrift store for $5 and put our poles in that.

We’ll check this bag, claim it in Italy, then donate it there. When we get ready to go home from Rome, we’ll buy a nice Italian bag there and use that as our checked bag (with poles). New Italian bag. CHECK. Poles shipped safely.  CHECK. All good!  Next post is from Italy!

Day 2 in Florence, Italy. No formal miles walked, though we ran 4 miles and walked several tourist miles, visiting the Ponte Vecchio, and the Uffizzi Museum (unbelievable Renaissance art! ). Tomorrow, we’ll visit more museums (statue of David, etc.). Saturday, we take the train to Lucca where, on Monday, we start our walk to Rome!

Sophomore stumble?  What’s that? While we were cruising on our sailboat, the stories of shipwrecks would be heard a few times a season. Invariably, it was NOT the rookie sailor (Freshmen), nor the seasoned sailors (Seniors). Rather, it’s the sophomore class that gets into trouble!  They’ve had some success under sail and become a bit too cocky (hubris?). These guys are the ones who don’t double check the charts, the weather, local knowledge, etc. The result is, unfortunately, an unexpected grounding or a very rough ride … that could have been avoided if they were just a bit more cautious.

So, what’s that got to do with us? Remember that 2 paged list that we proudly showed in an earlier post? We should have read it better!

We arrived last night with about 40 € in our pockets, which is enough to get us to our hotel where we could search out an ATM to increase our cash kitty. Since several of the more remote locations we will visit on our walk are cash-based, having a supply of Euros is critical.

One more background note: On these trips, we don’t take our full wallets/purse. We use a money belt, instead, for security. Into the money belt we load ONLY what we need: 2 credit cards, a medical card, driver’s license, ATM card, passports and cash.

So, this morning it was time to get cash. And then I remembered; I forgot to pack my ATM card! Crud! Oh well, Diane has hers, right? Nope! We both forgot!

No ATM, but we have credit cards, right? We can get cash that way, right? Sort of. We never set up the cards for cash withdrawal … A call to Visa tells us that, with your passport and credit card you can go to any bank and they’ll give you a cash advance.  Not in Italy! We visited several banks and the answer was a consistent, No!

The last resort was the infamous money exchange booths! For only a 370 € charge, they will gladly give you 300 € 🤑! For those keeping score, that’s an instantaneous 23% interest charge! Ouch! Here’s that hard earned cash (and infamous money belt) :

Now to avoid that charge next time, we requested a Pin from Visa. Unfortunately, they only give new Pin’s by mail to the home address … in 7 to 10 days! We ordered one, nonetheless. Our most kind friend, Barb Raffee, has agreed to check our mail for this … every day until it arrives. She is a saint!

And we, we’re the called-out, cocky Sophomores who have been taught a proper lesson in preparation! There are always lessons to learn 🙄.

Chao!

Day 2. No formal miles, but 4 more miles run and several more walked as tourists.

Today, was another tourist day. A visit to the Accademia is a must! Not only is it jam packed with art from all the great Renaissance artists, it also houses Michelangelo’s most famous statue, David. In this statue, we see King David (before he was king) contemplating his battle with Goliath. Here’s the statue and a better explanation:

And the background:

We also toured the Duomo cathedral, a truly impressive cathedral in the heart of Florence!

Now, to the 50 year old dots. In the late 60’s, there was a popular singer named, Donovan. He had a few hits, including “Mellow Yellow”, and “Hurdy Gurdy Man”. Now, for 50 years I’ve known the words to Hurdy Gurdy man,  (“then comes the Hurdy Gurdy man singing songs of love”), but didn’t have a CLUE what Hurdy Gurdy meant!

In the Accademia museum, there is a section on musical instruments. In it, I saw this:

Yes, that is a 350 year old Hurdy Gurdy! Who would know?  Now, I know. It only took 50 years!

Ciao!

A day of commuting.  Tomorrow, we do the tourist thing.

Probably the most noteworthy item from today was the heat. Upper 90’s. It may hit 100 F on Monday, our first hiking day. Welcome to Italy 😎! By Tuesday, it’s expected to start cooling to the mid-80’s. Much more agreeable.

We’ll give the lowdown on Lucca tomorrow, after we tourist.  Ciao

No official miles walked (we start tomorrow), but 5 miles running. So,  speaking of running, running really is a great way to get an overview of a town. The outer walls of Lucca are just over 2.5 miles in circumference. We ran two laps this morning providing an excellent overview of the city within. Here’s part of my Strava post, and one of the runners I saw there!

(By the way, she had an excellent run today! )

We tracked our tourist miles inside the city and we were surprised that we’d covered over 10 miles, between yesterday and today. Not a bad “day off”!

I only snapped one tourist photo, as I’d hit my limit in Florence. Lucca is a very beautiful town and deserved more photo space,  but …

Okay, it’s a small world … With frequency, we’ll stay in a rental flat that is a restored centuries-old structure. Sometimes, these restorations are palacial; opulent. Sometimes, they’re just old and cramped. Our accomodations in Lucca are quite nice, but they didn’t manage to get the bathroom right.

Apparently here in Europe, they sell shower boxes for the size- challenged!  These showers can be 24″x24″, and sometimes smaller! Really, you cannot turn around in these units! Our shower here was probably 27″x27″, big enough to turn around in, but … don’t drop the soap! You won’t see it until you step out.  Here’s Diane modeling the shower:

Continuing our Small World, we found our next car! It will fit in our garage (for sure), and maybe even our backpack.  It’s a Renault Twizy car:

It’s electric, for those who wish to reduce fossil fuel, and has room for two, but not side-by-side (not for the romantics, here).

Enough for today. Tomorrow we hit the trail!

1. Our journey has begun. 12 miles of walking, with only 200′ of climbing. There were mountains to be seen, we just didn’t have to climb them!

For a first day out, the course was not especially demanding.  And an early start kept us out of the worst of today’s heat (96 F)

We were given a head’s up from friends who had done this walk (from Switzerland to Rome) that this stage out of Lucca was perhaps the most boring of the bunch; industrial, mostly on roads, and very flat. Their description was pretty accurate.

This morning, before the hike, I was reading in Ecclesiastes (5:19), that “God gives the bounty and our ability to enjoy it”. Its our job to get off the stick and actually enjoy what we’ve been given. We did our best to enjoy today’s journey, exactly as it was!

Some days will be flat and industrial, others mountainous, or vineyards, or forests, etc. There’s a time for every purpose (or topography) under heaven. For those keeping score, that’s from Ecclesiastes 3, but also from the 60’s rock group,  The Byrds, “Turn, Turn, Turn”. I think that Hurdy Gurdy from Florence has locked me in a 60’s music mode!  Maybe we’ll sight a disco ball and my thinking will advance to the 70’s. Perhaps not 🤔!

Enough for now, showers, laundry and foraging await!

Today was another 12 miles, with about 500′ of climbing. The most noteworthy thing about today was the absence of road miles. Roughly 90% of today’s journey was on trails, a very pleasant departure from yesterday’s journey of a thousand roads!

In each of our journeys, a key first step is learning how the path is marked. For the most part, the Via Francigena is the best marked trail we’ve been on! You rarely go 100 yards without seeing a trail sign. It almost spoils you! Today we had a stretch of about 3/4th’s of a mile without a sign. Surely, I’m in the wrong path! No, it is just that there wasn’t a convenient place to put a sign.

So, what do they look like? The first thing to note is that “many signs look alike”. There is a Via Francigena for hikers, for bikers, and even for cars. You need to make sure you’re on the right version.

Here’s a bike and walkers sign:

More often, small stickers are used, as:

We have also seen many of these more permanent, tombstone-esque signs:

Pilgrims: Today was the day for meeting  pilgrims.  Most are Italian, though we’ve met a Hungarian woman, an Irish woman (both solo hikers), a British youth,  and two or three Italian couples. So, even in the dog days of summer, people still do this walk.

Now for showers, etc. We hope each of you are doing well.

Greetings! Today was 7 miles, bringing our total miles walked to 31. So much to talk about, so little time!

We were forewarned about mosquitoes being a problem in Florence, but really didn’t see too many there. Yesterday in Fucecchio, we learned that  the little nippers were all on vacation in Fucecchio! Seriously! While touring the town and reading a sign, Bill looked down to see a swarm of mosquitos dining on his legs. About 8 bites later, we were running back to our place where a bottle of 30% deet awaited us. After spraying, we went back out and thoroughly enjoyed the town. We had our best pizzas yet in Italy!

Lost Tippers: We use hiking poles. When on pavement, we put rubber tips on our poles for better grip and less clacking noise. Almost immediately after starting today, Bill found a metal drain grate where the tip popped right off! So, for the rest of the  walk, Bill sounded like: step-click-step-click, etc. Somewhere in the Adriatic sea, Bill’s lost tip is floating along …

Found Money: Last week we talked about our “Sophomore Stumble”.  We forgot our ATM cards and never bothered to set up our credit cards for cash withdrawal. That forced us to visit the money changers and their remarkably high service charge.  To avoid that in the future, we requested a cash withdrawal PIN for our credit cards, and metered our cash expenditures very carefully!  Yippee and Hallelujah! Our very, very gracious friend,  Barb, kept checking our mail and reported to us, this morning that our PIN number came in! A trip to the local bank later confirmed that everything works! We’re in the money! Thank you, Barb!

The view: We’ve just arrived in San Miniato, located at the top of a hill. The view is stunning! Just a couple shots:

Tomorrow is a longer one, but the scenery is promised to be spectacular. We can’t wait!

Today was a bit longer, at 16 miles walked and 2,000′ of climbing. Our total for this journey is 47 miles.

The countryside in Tuscany is beautiful. Here is the view from our terrace yesterday as darkness was settling in:

And in our hike today:

Each day is different, and we’re enjoying each day for what it offers.

Burning Matches:  This is an expression in cycling which means you only have so much fuel (matches) to burn. And when it’s gone, it’s gone. Today’s walk was all about saving matches until the end. Even if you felt really good in the beginning and wanted to go fast up a hill, slow down … you’ll need those matches, later. Why? Today’s path finished with a big climb in the heat of the day. If you didn’t save some matches for that last climb, you could be in a world of hurt, in the mid-day heat.  We saw a number of pilgrims fading badly on this stretch.

Directions: This is actually a revisit to a topic from earlier hikes; you really do have to walk your own Camino. Following someone else is a recipe for getting lost, and an excuse to put the blame on someone else.   This morning, we were following 3 pilgrims out of San Miniato. Within a few 100 yards of leaving the town center, we noticed the absence of trail signs. They didn’t.  We spent a bit of time figuring out what went wrong and how to get back on course.  Lesson re- learned. Actually, within another mile our compatriots missed the trail … again. We were paying attention and made the turn. Now, to be clear, we make our share of trail mistakes.  By being your own guide, you stop blaming the “other guy” for getting you lost.  You (we) are that “other guy”.

Enjoy your own Camino today. Ciao

Today was 8 miles and 1,200′ of climbing. Our total so far is: 55 miles walked in our 5 days of hiking.

Like the prior days, this was again a beautiful journey through the Tuscan hills. (San Gimignano in the background).

Rhythms: The walks. Like France, many of the villages are built in hilltops for protection during earlier times from the invading hordes. The agriculture was located in the valleys, for access to water,  and the roads connected the two. For us travelers, going from village to village, our path is a rhythm of: climb to the hilltop for the village, then down to the valleys, then back up to the villages, etc.. Today’s profile shows this up-down-up-down rhythm.

Rhythms, departure and arrival. When we leave a town and when we arrive are functions of the day’s distance, the day’s temperatures, when we can check in and when we have to check out.  So, hotter days mean we leave early to avoid the heat. Likewise,  longer distances require earlier starts. However, on shorter stages, we can be limited by check in time. If we get to the town at 11:00am, but can’t check in until 3:00, it can be challenging to figure out what to do for 4 hours with our backpacks in tow. We are finding that early departures are better in these hot August days, so we often hit the trail by 7:00 am.

Rhythms, people:  We are becoming pretty familiar with “our class” of pilgrims. Notably, there is the Belgian, who walked out his door in Belgium in June and has been going ever since. He is about 1,200 miles into his journey and will stop at Rome in a couple of weeks.

Rhythms, mosquitos:  Okay, August in Tuscany is hot and humid. The little nippers love this weather. If you are a natural attractant, like Bill, then you need to make good friends with a bottle of DEET spray; don’t leave home without it!  Once applied, you can go about the business of enjoying Italy!

Rhythms, food:  Okay, you don’t come all the way to Italy and not enjoy the food! It is excellent! Here’s a brief glimpse of our dining:

(Press the image to see the gif)

Speaking of Rhythms, it is time for showers, laundry and exploring!