san gimignano - our tuscan interlude

As a remedy for the cold, I bring you a lengthy and wildly disjointed series of flashbacks to Tuscany in the summer. Featuring this goat.

prelude : great expanses
(Of land and of nothing.)

The country sweeps away from our farm in waves. The long rows of vineyards make the surface of the land look like it’s been combed over a scalp. The road we’re on has houses dotted along, a few with signs that say Agritourismo. We have a cottage on a family farm that produces olive oil and tiny fuzzy peaches, which grandma gives away in bowlfuls. Putting one in my mouth is like how I imagine it’d be to lick one of those skinny hairless cats. We eat a whole bowl in an hour.

We spend the morning relaxing. On a trip like ours, relaxation must be a prescribed and implemented activity. Being in a new city every five days compels me to be doing something at all times, for fear of wasting an hour that need not be wasted. We make doing nothing a something. San Gimignano was prescribed as a relaxation. We got a tip-off from a girl in our Venice hostel and we were sold on the idea. After Rome, after Florence, Venice, it was to be our sigh of Tuscan peace.

Time warps when I’m doing nothing. I put on the washing and then I look at the hills, read, listen to a car and then a tractor pass out of sight on the road. I make lunch with rosemary from the garden. I’m dizzy. The day warms around me slowly and my head fills with sunny country air until I can’t stand the pressure of nothing. I go for a walk while the afternoon cools.

episode one : slug attack
(Slug retreat.)

It happened in the kitchen. I guess attack is a strong word. More like, appearance. Presence of a slug. And what a slug it was. Officially my biggest slug.

I’m pretty good with creepies, generally. Not a fan, but we tolerate each other. I tolerate mostly because the thought of killing one is worse than the thought of co-existing. Even if you’re not a closet Buddhist, doesn’t the thought of bug guts turn you off the shoe-as-weapon method? Giving the big hairy spidey on the wall a name and turning off the light to pretend he’s sleeping is fine. Just fine.

I don't want to turn off the light on this guy. I don't fancy his guts between my toes on a midnight stroll. Game face. His trail shines in a 30cm arch behind him on the terracotta tiles. His magnificently long eye stalks probe the air ahead.  I search for the longest object in the cottage that can be subjected to slug juice. I sized him up, trying to figure out if a broom would mean gruesome death for an 8cm slug. Certainly. 

He changes his trajectory. Slowly. Damn, slugs are slow. He’s heading for the door. Eventually, he evacuates himself from the cottage.

Yes, it was a bit anticlimactic for me, too.

Other than Slugworthy, and a strange country-life smell that hangs behind the sink, the cottage is just the epitome of the tuscan getaway dream. There's a little collection of novels on a shelf and an outdoor table where we eat every meal in the sun.

episode two : the hitch-hike
(Wagging.)

I’ve had a bad habit all my life of trying to be good. I’ve mostly gotten over it now.

In my last week of high school I realised I’d never played truant. Not in the going-to-school-then-leaving sense (the hey-mum-and-dad-I’m-staying-home-please-write-me-a-sick-note I’m familiar with). This is one of those things I decided even the lamest student had to have done. I did it, but I did a lousy job of it (does lunch time even count?).

We’re in the country, the Tuscan countryside, on the road winding uphill to a preserved medieval town. When a car pulls over and waves us down, I know hitch hiking is another one of those things.

The roads are lined with vineyards. It’s sunny and there’s a soft country vibe.

The old guys in the car introduce themselves as Matteo and Luca. I'm not a church-goer but having Matthew and Luke in the front seat feels like a confirmation that I haven't done something rash. They speak Italian together and mostly ignore us. 

episode three : medieval
(UNESCO)

In Florence, tourist offices offer day trips to San Gimignano, the Tuscan town with the most well-preserved medieval architecture in Italy. We rather enjoy counting ourselves out of that coach-rindin' number for a little while; finding our way here on an infrequently-run local bus with only a smattering of people (we’re used to masses now) makes me feel like I'm basically Bear Grylls. Little thrills.

Inside the old town walls there's no traffic. There's not much noise to speak of, except a few musicians and some chatter. Wild hog salami hangs in shop windows and most have signs offering local cheese and wine tasting or else they're filled with soap. The restaurants hum. We cue for global award winning gelato. Though I usually vote against the lines business, I will never regret my decision to wait ten minutes for that ice cream. I watch the movement around the town well, which is decorated with people sporting paper cups and little plastic gelato spoons.  

episode four : not lost
(Lie.)

I feel like it’s left, I say.

We’re standing at a fork in the road. Ella refers to her hand-drawn map.

The map says right, she says.

It’s overcast but won’t rain – good walking weather. The road is lined with wildflowers and it winds over hills that we convince ourselves are familiar. We pant up slopes and veer onto the grassy shoulder when we hear something coming along the road.

When it’s over an hour since we left town, I’m finding it harder to call the road familiar. We stand in the shade on a driveway and decide to ask someone. A car passes and we don’t stop it. 

Another car is coming up the opposite driveway, crunching slowly on the dirt. I cross the road and hail him down.

Ciao, I say.

Sera, he says.

Sant’ Andrea? I say.

San Gimignano?

Sant’ Andrea, Ella says.

He shakes his head. We both say it again. Then he says, Ahhh. He points down the road, in the direction we’ve come.

Grazie, we say, and he nods us off.

We ask a hairy farmer a few hundred metres down, for a second opinion. He speaks in Italian, but we can follow his hand back the same way, and pick out Sant’ Andrea, San Benedicto. A young woman walks through the vineyard towards us. The farmer and the woman fight in Italian for long enough that I consider leaving just to see if they notice. Then she tells us in good English that Sant’ Andrea is in the direction of San Benedicto, that way.

Grazie. 

It’s a long walk home in the gathering dusk.

episode five : the reconnoitre
(hunt for bus stop)

I want to find the bus stop for tomorrow. We came in to the town on a bus, and luxuriously from San Gimignano to the farm in a taxi. We had an address with no number.

It’s okay, the taxi driver said. Sant’ Andreas has three houses. If it’s not the first, it’s the second, or the third. He counted the numbers on his fingers in the rear view mirror for us.

I remember passing bus stops on our detour yesterday, and I want to avoid the cab fare back to town. Walking the road in the sun is a good feeling. I start to sweat. A young farmer honks his tractor horn and grins at me. I wave back though I wouldn’t in the city. There isn’t much traffic on the road besides a few tourist cars and old tractors and mopeds that sound like 80s kitchen appliances. Some tractors have trailers loaded with ripe grapes that bounce like they’re jelly. I find the stop and read the timetable in a phonetic kind of way that passes for understanding. A man pulls his car over while I'm reading and tells me the next bus to Poggibonsi should come by soon. His kindness, the fact he could be bothered to pull over (and the fact that I didn't immediately assume he was a creeper) was the perfect way to cap off our little foray into the peace of a place that feels like it's been dropped here out of the past.