Today’s plan went
Visit Montecatini Terme. Admire hill top
town.
Move onto Pistoia (where the pistol was
invented)
Start to enjoy rolling Tuscan countryside
Overnight.
What actually happened
Breakfast in Lucca
Lunch in Florence
Evening drinks in Greve in Chianti (in the
heart of Chianti Country, um, as the name might suggest).
Bizarre sighting of the day…
On the outskirts of Lucca we spotted a UK plated
London black cab* (yes really) with what appeared to be a fare in the back!
Cab rank Euston Square London (earlier the previous
day)
>Yes guvnur, where to?
>Lucca please
>Where?
>Y’know, Tuscany?
>OK squire, hop in.
*no alcohol or illegal drugs were involved in
this sighting.
So, why did the plan get so derailed?? Once
again, the books have lied. The maps lie, the campsite guide book lies, the
Italian guide book lies, the sign posts lie. The Italians can’t even give
verbal directions without a bit of fiction thrown in let alone get it down on
paper. Lies!! (Except Mother’s old copy of the Rough Guide, which is always
spot on). Anyway, we’re trying to follow
this tour, through the rolling hills of Tuscany, but we seem to have been
misled somewhat: there are, as yet, no rolling hills: what we do have are
flatlands and industry and about a million billboards per mile. It is not so
very nice. We admire Montecatini from a distance as we cruise on past, we
attempt Pistoia where the ‘finest examples of Tuscan architecture’ are more
akin to Brixton tenements, Prato looks so bad that we hop off the Florence Road
onto the Prato slip road and hop directly back on, sharpish. We didn’t even
have to do a lap of the roundabout to think about it. We are upon Florence
before we know it. Florence does not like Camping Cars. Parking is impossible,
even more so than usual. When we eventually do find somewhere a hustler tries
to rip us off. We bail. Eventually we get lucky and give ourselves 2.5hrs worth
of parking to do whistle-stop tour of Florence. Culture at its quickest! So, of
course we went straight to a bar for a leisurely beer and some lunch first. One
must prioritise these things.
Florence:
Expensive lunch. Check.
Duomo, Campinile, Battistero. Check.
All the important Piazzas and Palazzos.
Check.
Most expensive ice cream in the world on the
Ponte Vecchio. Check. (€15 for 2)
Florence: Veni, Vidi, Vici. Sort of… sorry
Florence, we probably didn’t do you justice, but thanks for a lovely afternoon
nonetheless (and apologies to Ocky, we never quite made it to those gardens, car
park fear won out, but thanks x).
In epic heat, (this has to be the hottest yet)
we leave Florence and head for the hopeful calm of the Chianti trial. We leave
feeling slightly concerned that the Tuscany we had in mind doesn’t exist
anymore. We needn’t have worried. 20 minutes later we are on the correct road
and things are beginning to look like we imagined. Despite some more tragic
sign posting (sign post says right, 200yds later T junction says left) we find
ourselves in Greve in Chianti. Camping spot Aire located first time (this is a first) and it’s
perfect: free, quiet, drinkable water fountain thingy (checked with Italian FCVT
it was drinkable ‘Certo’!) and we can.. erm… empty things. We celebrate with Lidl’s
finest.