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Day 3 – Gambassi Terme to San Gimignano – shorter, but still non-trivial

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Wednesday 14 May 2025 – The very basic nature of our hostel accommodation was heavily borne in on us as we went down to breakfast. The tables had been set out with places allocated by name – and those before us had clearly completely ignored all this and there were basically no untouched places left for us to sit at; also, all the bread had been taken and not replaced, the kettle was nearly empty and the kitchen was locked. This was a very poor show, we thought. We’d arranged an 8am start between us and the many people who had exited earlier had swept through the buffet like a plague of locusts. It would have been a good idea to have someone on duty in the kitchen to help with replacement fodder. We organised tea and I had some cereal, but there was little there for Caroline or Jane to eat.

It’s an attractive enough setting

round the back of a 12th-Century church just outside Gambassi Terme,

but one feels it could be better run.

Off we went, then, at about 0830, into a morning in which the fog was just clearing. The Via Francigena signs pointed us towards Gambassie Terme, but the S-cape app’s red line bypassed the place.  We followed the line, and so I’m afraid I can’t tell you what the town was like. “Terme”, by the way, means it was a spa town.

The profile for the day (let me remined you here)

showed us going down from Gambassi Terme, then up about 300m overall (ugh!) before descending once more before a gentle rise up to San Gimignano. We started on tarmac before heading off on a dirt road

which led past an intriguing sign.

The scenery was, as before, lovely.

and I was particularly taken with the “stripy corduroy” effect achieved in some patches of vines.

The Chianti sign enigma was explained a little further on, as we passed an attractive winery.

It offered stamps for our “credenziali” (passports for the route) and the sign outside said it was open. But I think it was kind of Spanish open, i.e. closed. So we moved on, but in researching the name later, I learned a little to supplement my non-existent understanding of Italian wine. The Chianti region is in central Tuscany, with Chianti Classico being the area between Florence and Siena. This winery might produce Classico, or possibly Chianti Colli Senesi, which is regional to San Gimignano. Classico must be at least 80% Sangiovese grape variety, other variants of Chianti must be at least 70%.

We were on the down stretch of the walk, but soon reached the bottom, by another fine-looking establishment

which turned out to be a newly-opened agriturismo outfit called La Torre. At this point, the uphill work starts.

It was a long uphill pull, at times quite steep – but at least a lot of it was in the shade, which made it a lot less unpleasant than yesterday’s toil.

We passed a horse-riding centre (calling itself “Via Francigena”, so presumably offering people the chance to ride part of the route)

one of whose dogs accompanied us quite a way carrying a ball

but it didn’t want to part with it, so clearly wasn’t a retriever.

The steep uphill work continued for a while

but at least offered us great views of where we had earlier been descending.

We passed some handsome buildings

many of which seemed to be some kind of agriturismo setup, but none of which could actually be arsed to set up a coffee stop for thirsty passing pilgrims (of which it had to be said, there was a steady trickle).

We passed through a village, Pancole, which also had no coffee stops, but it did have a sanctuary.

We couldn’t, sadly, explore it because it was in use; a mass was about to start for a congregation seemingly made up of the local elderly and infirm – lots of ambulances and taxis outside – they didn’t invite us in, though.

We followed the road a little further until we could see San Gimignano in the distance; it didn’t seem to be much higher than we were, so I thought that perhaps the worst of the climb was over.

Wrongly, as it turned out. The Via signposts took us on to a track which carried on steeply uphill. In the spirit of proper completion, we grimly ploughed on and up, past more handsome buildings (but no coffee stops)

until we (a) got a good glimpse of our destination, San Gimignano

and (b) reached the highest point of the walk, marked by the Monasterio de Cellole.

In the inevitable way of these things, our route then led us down to a very poorly-designed road which led further down before going up into San Gimignano. One would have hoped the designers would have worked out some way of keeping it level for us poor pilgrims, but no. However, there was a consolation and a distraction because the views were, as before, stupendous. It was occasionally possible to catch a nice vignette of the countryside

but by and large it’s too big to fit into a single photo.


Eventually, we toiled up into San Gimignano, which is, you guessed it, very steep in places, mainly up

as we had to get to our hotel, Hotel La Cisterna, which is in the town’s main square, i.e. the highest point. Before you boys at the back start any schoolboy giggles, the name is nothing lavatorial. “Cisterna” in Italian means “Well”, which is more than one can say for the current US President, and you can see the well right in front of our hotel.

Our run of luck, of hotels being ready for us, continued, and our baggage had arrived, so, it being only about 1pm by this stage, we could swiftly get hosed down and changed and head out for a decent lunch, which we took just round the corner at a bar/cafe called Torre Guelfa.

After lunch, we were all feeling a siesta coming on, so had a quick look at the Duomo

and found out its opening hours for a later expedition for some sightseeing and gelato. We were intrigued by one gelato shop

which had the most extraordinary queue. It’s not as if it was the only one in town, so we decided it would clearly bear research later, when the crowds had dissipated. We also decided to visit one very interesting museum that Jane had found, to make sure we got to it before it closed.

It’s a beautiful recreation of how San Gimignano – “The City of Towers” – would have looked in medieval times. At one stage there were over a hundred towers in the town, mainly built by people to show off. 14 remain, and you can see some of them in the photos on this page.

Siesta over, we ventured out once more with our main objective being ice-cream a visit to the cathedral.  It is a well-recommended activity, and costs only €5 to get in. I wasn’t sure what to expect from such a highly-touted place, but there was a tiny clue as we headed for the entrance.

What you see, on walking in, is remarkably impactful. The interior of the church is liberally covered with frescoes and it made a huge impression on me.

It’s not an intimate space for communing with God, but it has a certain majesty about it.

Here’s a gallery of some of the photos I took to try to convey what the interior looks like.

After that, ice-cream seemed to be a good thing, so we went back to that popular shop

where the queue had died down a bit, and we could see the staggering variety of ice-cream they offered.

We consumed ours whilst sitting on the Duomo steps, and after that a drink seemed a necessity. We were heading for the Terraza outside our hotel when Jane suggested we walk down a side alley to a punto panoramico that (as it happens) our hotel bedroom looks out on. This was a good move.

There is a little enoteca in the Cisterna square called Divinorum, and it has a back door that offers a fantastic view in the afternoon sunshine.

A drink there in the last of the sunshine set us up nicely for a reasonably early night in preparation for the morrow.

Tomorrow’s walk is about the same length as today’s was, but should be a little less arduous. We have to get to Colle Val d’Elsa and the S-cape app describes the walk as “one of the most beautiful routes on the Via Francigena”. So we can look forward to something much nicer than the humdrum views we’ve been subjected to so far, eh?

Day 2 – San Miniato to Gambassi Terme – not so long, but hard

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Tuesday 13 May 2025 – Extraordinarily, given the rigours of yesterday, everyone was in reasonable shape as we convened for breakfast, which was a buffet affair with plenty of variety, so we were all able to eat our fill in preparation for the day to come.

One thing about the day was somewhat daunting – the last 4km of the walk.

This would be twice as long as yesterday’s final climb and ascend twice as far. I wasn’t looking forward to it. Another thing we knew about the walk was that there were effectively no coffee stops (there was one, but it was about three km in, so not particularly useful as a rest stop). So we had to get ourselves some food for a picnic lunch, which we got in a local store.

Off we went, then, through San Miniato, which is a place of monumental architecture

and stunning views.

Even as we walked along the road out of town, it was clear that the locals had some fantastic scenery to look at.

The expected length of the day’s walk was 24km – less than yesterday (praise be), but still a non-trivial amount of walking.  We started off along the road

and a couple of things were borne in on me. Firstly, that there were more walkers/pilgrims out than we’d seen the day before;

and secondly, there were a lot more ups and downs that we’d had to deal with the day before. There was also a lot more road than I had expected; we covered a full 6km – quarter of the day’s walking – on the road, up to a point where I began to wonder if tarmac was going to be the surface for the whole day, and also to get a bit fed up with the amount of up and down. I suppose I should have looked at the profile of the route (first photo) to realise that it was “Inca flat”, a phrase we’d learned in South America that described terrain that ends up the same altitude as it started, but isn’t actually flat at all. You can see from the sawtooth in that profile that this was what we had to deal with today.

Eventually, though, we left the road and joined a much more rural track.

There was still a lot of up and down, though. The track became slightly rougher as we went along

but the going was good; and the scenery was stunning.

The scenery had a role to play in trying to distract me from the rather tedious procession of ups and downs the track took. There was a fire in the distance, which we hoped was a controlled blaze.

We’d read that this route offered “no services” (hence the buying of our picnic lunch) but about 8km in we came across something that called itself a “punto sosta” for the Via Francigena:

a little cabinet with things that suffering walkers might appreciate – pain killers, bandage, disinfectant and so forth.

A charming idea – and one located by a picnic table for the poor sufferer to rest at.

We used the table for a short break, and then ceded it to a German couple who we’d seen the previous day; the gentleman is finding the walking rather trying – and I believe that they hadn’t realised that there were no rest stops on this route, either.

We pressed on and the track led past a wooden sculpture recognising 20 years of the Via Francigena to Rome.

Among the grass it says “20 years road to Rome” with the figure of a pilgrim and his faithful dog. Actually when we found it, it said “20 years oad to Rome”. Jane found the “r” and balanced it in place for the photo.

Next to it was a very amusing sight – an info board pointing out the delights of the view back to San Miniato, except that in the interim, trees had grown up to obscure the view the board purported to explain.

The track by now was a bit rougher still, but the scenery continued to be as much of a distraction as scenery can be. As well as stunning views, we passed a building, presumably a farm building, which had many chickens and other poultry outside

and a very charismatic cockerel posing in the middle of the yard.

Very shortly thereafter we passed two interesting and not unrelated sights: a signpost showing the distances involved in the whole Via Francigena, from Canterbury to Rome;

and a lady from New Zealand who was walking the whole route, but from Rome to Canterbury. That’s dedication, that is.

The track was becoming increasingly rudimentary,

and there were some stretches where mud made picking one’s route a matter of importance. We passed a donkey mill

now disused and repurposed for the storage of hay rather than anything else.

The track was rough and tedious, by this stage, still going up and down like a very up and down thing, but the scenery continued to be stunning, if one could be bothered to appreciate it.

The touble was, appreciating it was beginning to be very difficult. We found a shady place to stop and eat our sandwiches and it was at about this point – somewhat over half way – that my body decided that the goodwill it had extended to get me this far was used up and started to go on selective strikes. The mechanism that provided energy to the leg muscles clocked off; and the one that mitigated pain to the shoulders started a work to rule.

In the following photo of the lovely scenery

it is possible to see our destination for the day, Gambassi Terme.

and, as expected, it’s quite a lot higher than we were at this point. About 4km from our end point, the route started up,

and I noted the situation shown by S-cape’s interactive route map of the day.

to which my response was this.

The couple of kilometres after lunch were the worst. The couple of kilometres after that, they were the worst, too. After that, things went into to a bit of a decline. All three of us struggled for those last four km. We didn’t even make it all the way up to Gambasi Terme

as our accommodation, Ostello Sigerico was (mercifully) a kilometre or so short of the town. We were grateful to be able to stop. Jane and I collapsed into something of a daze for a while before cleaning ourselves up for an evening meal.

Given what feels like the hard work I’d put in to days 1 and 2 of this walk, I was a bit miffed, on checking in with the data collected by my Garmin activity tracker, to find that, although I’d undergone 434 minutes of activity yesterday and 350 today, only 7 and 5 minutes respectively were considered to have been “vigorous”. I have to tell you that it bloody didn’t feel that way inside my body.

As the name of  our accommodation suggests, it’s not a luxury hotel, but a hostel – towards the luxury end of these things, but a hostel nevertheless. (Sigerico was a 10th-century Archbishop of Canterbury who made a pilgrimage to Rome, following the Via Francigena and arriving in 990.) Our terms were half board, and the evening meal was very much a pilgrim meal – pasta followed by pork and beans. Basic, but nonetheless wholesome and tasty. We shared a table with some Francophone people, a couple and a single, who each, in their own way, were dedicating time in their lives to covering significant parts of the Via Francigena.

Tomorrow, we actually get the chance for a more relaxed day – about 15km of walking, although there’s quite a bit of up and down in it.

It will be interesting to see how our energy levels are. The target is San Gimignano,a UNESCO World Heritage site, so I hope we arrive with sufficient energy to go sightseeing around it. Stay tuned to see how the day turned out.

 

Day 1 – Altopascio to San Miniato; a long, long walk

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Monday 12 May 2025 – Right, then. This is it, the start of the Long Walk To Rome. As ever with these organised walks, day 1 seems always to be a bastard, and on paper, this one added further credibility to that assertion – 29km in all, a distance which we’d walked as we practised, but this time we would be toting backpacks and there would be hills. The last couple of kilometres, particularly, featured a climb of 150m, in itself not a huge amount, but coming after all those km made it seem a daunting prospect.

We would start the walk not in Lucca, but in Altopascio, some 20km away. To get there we would take the train and the earliest sensible candidate train was at 0831 if we were to breakfast at our hotel. That’s what we did – again, not at all an inspiring breakfast, but at least it provided calories for fuel for the day. The Hotel Rex is brilliantly located for station – it’s about 80 metres away.

so (having bought our tickets in advance) we were promptly on Platform 3

The lines are in constant use, but it looks like they run through a field!

and the train arrived fairly promptly after its scheduled time. Altopascio was the first stop, about 10 minutes later

and we used the very helpful app provided by the local agency who organised our itinerary, S-Cape, to find our way to our official start point through the town, which has some attractive corners.

A ripple of excitement passed through us as we spotted out first official Via Francigena signpost

so we used that and the town square for the only type of selfie I will tolerate – the start or end of a long walk.

And then we were off! At first along the road

past the local cemetery

and then on to woodland tracks.

where we encountered other pellegrinos – a pair of French ladies and a Dutch lady walking solo. Since our pace and theirs were very similar, it was a little awkward at times as we would go past, but then pause to take a photo and be overtaken. All very good natured, of course, but I would have preferred for us to have been alone whilst we got into the rhythm of walking decent distances again. No matter, we soon separated and were able to carry on at our own paces.

The signposting for this section was very good, if at times a tad ramshackle

As well as the signpost, you can see an example of the concrete waymarks which dot the route.

The scenery was pleasant and rural

and the track eventually led on to a section of cobbled road originally several hundred years old

which, as well as being uphill, was occasionally tricky underfoot. But we made it OK to the town of Galleno, about 9km in to the walk, where we had planned our first coffee stop. Very welcome it was, too.

Galleno features some nice properties. We were quite taken by this pair of houses,

the left-hand one of which had a rather nice trompe l’oeuil picture on it.

There was some mystery artwork on offer, too.

We pressed on through woodland, and every so often there would be a roar of aircraft engines as an aeroplane flew over.

It turned out to be a C130 Hercules. We weren’t sure why, but it flew over us several times as we walked along; perhaps the pilot was practising circuits and bumps, but I couldn’t work out where that might be based.

Our (OK, Jane’s) original plan had been to have two stops during the day, one at Galleno for coffee and one at Fucechhio, as these were about 10 and 20km into the overall walk. However, as we approached Ponte al Cappiano, about half way between the two (and halfway along the day’s route), it was 1pm and we thought it would be a good idea to stop for lunch. The first restaurant we came to, called Cerris, served us salads, chips and beer, which was exactly what we needed. As we were lunching, the three ladies we’d passed earlier came in to eat, and we also had a brief chat with a proactively friendly American lady called Kim, who was walking bits of the route with a British friend. As we finished our lunch a group of British lady bicigrinos (doing the route on bicycles) came by and so we were able to offer them our table.

During the morning, although we’d only seen the three ladies I mentioned earlier, we were overtaken by plenty of bicigrinos, all men. Up to the point where we met Kim’s chap, I had been the only male walker we’d seen on the route; nominative determinism hard at work again!

Ponte al Cappiano is an attractive place

and, unsurprisingly, features a bridge

which crosses the Canale Usciana. Our route took us beside the canal on a sort of levee

whose nicely trimmed grassy path soon  degraded into a narrrow track which often had us wading through waist-high grass. The scenery was nice enough,

but the going was (a) somewhat tiresome and (b) getting very hot. I suppose the temperature can’t have been much higher than 20C, but in unshaded sunshone it felt a lot hotter. After a while, we got a good glimpse of Fucecchio

where we fondly hoped we could find refreshment, because we were getting fed up with the incessant wading through grass.  One has to go up through the town

and, having climbed up to its centre, it seemed that everything was shut, which was a disappointment. However, once we got down to the other side of town, we found, to our delight, a bar which was open so that we could have a rest and a cold drink, both of which were sorely needed by this stage.

The way out of the town passed an interesting property

but then once again found its way on the levee

where we got a decent view of our eventual destination, San Miniato, and an idea of how much we’d have to climb to get there. As before, there were passages through swathes of waist-high grass

and we got a closer view of San Miniato.

San Miniato has a lower town and an upper town. Guess which one our hotel is in, go on, why don’t you.

We passed a bodega which clearly was interested in getting some pilgrim business

and, at 28km into the walk, started the climb to upper San Miniato.

There were some great views to be had as we walked.

and we eventually hit the outskirts of the town, which has a wide variety of twinning operations in place.

It’s clearly a place with a lot of history, and a lot of impressive chunks of masonry;

our hotel, the eponymous Hotel San Miniato, has a very impressive frontage, as well.

We arrived a few minutes after 6pm, having covered just over 30km and feeling very tired indeed. It was all we could do to grab a cup of tea in the bar (we provided tea bags and mugs to ensure it was up to snuff) before basically collapsing for the rest of the evening and night. So I fear that I’ll not be able to regale you with further shots of San Miniato, as the plan is to head out promptly tomorrow. The reason for that is that Day 2, while not being an utter bastard like today, is still 24km and with a substantial climb at the end. Worse, there are no places to stop for coffee, so we will have to get ourselves some kind of packed lunch in the town and feed ourselves as we go. This is the first time on any of our long walking holidays travels that we’ve had to deal with this tragic turn of events, so wish us luck and come back to find out how we got on, won’t you?