San Miniato to Gambassi Terme, Day 31
Apart from the first few km and last few km, today was wonderful gravel tracks with the occasional monster steep hill through vineyards.
24.02km, 65% off-road, 634m climb
2h 51m moving, 5h 34m elapsed
Sunny, 29°C average, 40°C max
Highlights
One problem with very early starts is finding places to eat. Fortunately the Caffè Bistrot Bonaparte in San Miniato opens at 0630 and we were there. Yet another fantastic breakfast. 4 out of 5 stars. Check out the view from the bog.
The great thing about early mornings even in summer is that there’s often mist in the valleys and it makes for a wonderful atmosphere.
Our first real white roads the “Strada Bianche”. A lot of today was on these sweeping fast gravel sections.
We got to Gambassi Terme for lunch, just avoiding the worse heat of the day.
Lunch was at Pontormo Caffe and this was probably the best pizza we had in Italy. There was also a great selection of guests from some “no-fur” dogs that looked like they’d risen from Hell to meeting a pilgrim from Quiberon pulling a small trailer by hand.
Terme della Via Francigena. This was easily in our top 3 activities of the whole trip. The guy running the place looked like a fading rock star from the 70s but was so friendly and interested in what people were doing and helping them enjoy themselves; what a fantastic person. The kids got to play in the pool and experience some of the spa treatments like ice buckets, steam rooms and thermal baths; we even got to drink some of the “raw” water that is actually piped from a few km away (note: it didn’t taste great).
We stayed at a B&B right next to the spa, Villa Della Certosa, which we didn’t do a great job of finding. Highly recommended and comfortable.
Gambassi Terme hasn’t the old world charm of other places but it is a wonderful place to walk around early evening with people out in the main square having an early evening drink and chat. You can even see San Gimignano from some parts of town.
We ate at Osteria Pinchiorba which was again 3 out of 5 stars. Nothing great, but not bad.
Lowlights
There’s a real lack of water sources on this route. It’s the same as the walking route but were were getting desparate by the time we got to Coiano: we ended up heading into the “olive oil refinery” and got some there. The guide seems to mention water at the church in Coiano but it is in dire straits and need of repair and we couldn’t find water there. The only other water we found was at the beginning of the climb up to Gambassi Terme just before Borgoforte.
