Day 31 - San Miniato to Gambassi Terme - Wednesday July 15, 2015

Breakfast was at 7:30 today, and we left at 8. We had been told, and the route notes indicated that there were no stores/bars/restaurants along most of the route today, and we had done nothing to prepare yesterday.

When we walked out we went to admire the view from the restaurant, and then discovered we were indeed in Piazetti del Castello. We could also see that part of the Imperial Palace dated the second half of the 12^th century was still part of the existing hotel.

We then made a series of stops at stores/restaurants picking up water and supplies for lunch.

The walk today was billed as 25 km, and there was nothing between km 2 and 22. We got a 1.5 litre of iced tea and figured when it got really hot it would just be like tea with lemon. We also had 4 bottles of water, a piece of pizza, a banana, and two apples. By the time we left it was 8:45.

It was a lovely walk today through rolling hills and farmland, past olive groves and grape vines, with beautiful views of the country and valleys below. 

We stopped for lunch at run down church. It said there was a pilgrim oasis 150 metres away, with water and picnic tables, but we didn’t feel like walking an extra 300 meters, only to discover there wasn’t one.

It could have been a very nice day. The problem was we were walking in full sun all day, except for the shade of the odd tree, it was 40 degrees, it was either up or down all the time, and we had no access to cold drinks.

Fairly early on we met and passed the lady we had seen climbing up to the church of San Francesco yesterday. She is from Holland and started the VF in Germany. She walked the Camino and said ‘this is much harder’. We agreed and carried on.

By 12:00 it insufferable. I was thinking we were insane to be walking in this heat. The trouble was there was really no way to bail. We were on paths much of the day and went through no villages, just past the odd clump of houses.

I was really looking forward to the restaurant at km 22, and at that km we went past a few houses, but no bar. I was virtually in tears. At that point we met a very young couple from the Czech Republic bicycling to Rome, and they stopped to chat. They were very nice. We talked about how unbearably hot it was. They said the region was having a heat wave, and I said every region we’ve been in has been having a heat wave since we got here. They said they had run out of water. Russ and I had drank just about all the water and iced tea we had brought, but we still had one bottle of water and I offered them some of it, saying it was boiling hot, but they said they were almost at their destination. Slightly further up the road the mythical bar appeared. Hallelujah. The bikers were there and the fellow was waving to us and pointing to the bar.

Russ and I each drank a bottle of cold water, and bought another. We then starting climbing up the road to a church 1.6km away, and finished off the other bottle of water. We passed a gas station with a bar and stopped and drank a powerade, another bottle of water, then I asked for an orange. He asked if I wanted orange juice, and I said no, I wanted the orange, which he cut into quarters and we ate. It was delicious. The fellow gave us the orange for free, saying ‘it’s just one orange’. After that we bought another bottle of water, I got a popsicle, and we carried on climbing up the road. We reached an information centre and I got a map of the city and had the lady circle our B&B (eat your heart out Beppe). We finished the bottle of water getting to our lodging for tonight, which we found with no difficulty thanks to the information center map. I’m sure we would never have found it if all we all had was Beppe’s instructions. Another beautiful place, but the air conditioning wasn’t really working, and  the place was booby trapped so if any window was open, the air conditioner went off.

We had a lovely dinner at a bar in town (dinner was not included tonight). We ordered one secondi (pork with fennel), one rosemary potatoes, one grilled vegetables, and a salad each. It was very good, and too much food.

There was something strange about the town. It seemed to be just men at the bar/restaurants. Then women would walk by with children, going to the beautiful park.

We had hung the clothes in the bathroom (as per usual), but for some reason the bathroom really smelled bad, and I said to Russell I didn’t think they were going to dry overnight, and they didn’t.