We traveled all day Friday to reach San Gimignano, which lies about 50 km or 1 hour by slow regional train south of Florence. We had pounding rain, thunder and lightening and cold weather all of the way, but arrived to a beautiful Tuscan evening. Our hotel, Hotel La Cisterna is right in the center of town, but unfortunately the train doesn't come to this town. We asked a cab what the price was to take us the 10 km to our town, and after hearing his rediculous answer of 50£ we struck out for the bus stop. After half an hour the bus arrived, the driver jumped signaled to all of the Americans waiting for him, to put our luggage in the luggage comp'artment in the back of his mini-bus. We all did as instructed then boarded the bus only to find out we were to have purchased a ticket in advance. Lots of yelling in Italian went with that discovery, so Mike and another American went in search of tickets while the women stayed near the bus to make sure our luggage did not head off without us. The bar where he dicrected us to get the tickets told Mike they weren't selling any, so they came back to the bus. Meanwhile the driver is getting irritated by the delay. I told him we needed to get the luggage out before he could leave which further bugged him. So, in the end he signaled us in to the bus without tickets. The ride up the hill was through gorgeous vineyards with ancient stone farmhouses lined up on the top of hills. It was wonderful. The driver didn't want any money when we got to town, but Mike insisted he keep our 5 Euro tip, so we ended up trying to patch international relations between Italy and America by not mooching a free ticket.
We are taking turns using the internet cafe computer... the only one that works, so I have to log off now. We are in seach of another place where we can both work at once.
I will write further in a bit. Deanne
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