The medieval town of San Gimignano, with its fourteen towers, loomed above me when I parked the rental car and unloaded my bike for today's ride, up to this lovely UNESCO World Architectural Heritage site and then for almost seventy km around the Tuscan countryside.
This lovely city could be seen on the horizon from just about every point during the ride. More than 1600 meters of climbing, as I dawdled for three and a half hours, stopping to ride through the car-free city center, past the sidewalk cafes full of tourists, up narrow alleyways that turned into steep staircases (pick up the bike and carry it, of course.)
About 16 km south of the walled city above, I ran into a group of about twenty cyclists from St. Louis and Kansas City, who were on an organized tour. "What? You are just riding by yourself?" Yes, rather than spending several hundred dollars a day to have someone figure out where to ride, organize my meals and arrange a place to sleep, I was on my own, and soon listening to the new Scorsese Rolling Stones soundtrack while rocking on up the hills towards Volterra.
In this photo, you can see San Gimignano in the distance.
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