Climbing out of Deiva Marina to join the tunnelling A12 motorway high above With the drizzle forecast to continue another day, but brighter weather on the way ,I decided to use today to travel a distance further south, to Tuscany. Ultimately I’m aiming, of course, for the Vatican City, another country on the list to visit.
The only feasible way out of Deiva Marina was to climb back to the motorway. By the time I left the campsite I still had seen absolutely no sign of anyone, even though I was parked only 20 yards from the reception kiosk. Before leaving I tried ringing the campsite number-no answer-so finally I just had to leave without paying. The showers were hot but there was nobody home!
Quite soon into the journey the motorway actually descended to a narrow coastal plain near La Spezia-so no more tunnels! The mountains were still high to my left (the east) and on each descending ridge from them was perched a hill town. I would imagine that the defensive strategy was that the armies taking the easy route along the plain couldn’t be bothered to slog up the mountains to each little town. At one point the steep jagged mountains had had great slices taken out of them, on the most impossible cliffs and pinnacles. As I momentarily wondered what this was, I passed the sign to Carrara, and realised they were the famous marble quarries.
Very soon I was skirting Pisa. Having visited the leaning tower twice already, and found the rest of Pisa to be rather an unpleasant place, I was happy just to give the tower and Duomo a wave as I passed them . At Pisa I came off the motorway, for now the roads were much more horizontal. For 160 km I paid this time 8 Euro, a cheaper rate: but the man in the toll booth-(at last, a manned toll booth!) was having such a heated argument with a woman in there with him, that I’ve no idea if he charged me the correct rate.
One thing Italian drivers seem incapable of doing is ,when coming down a slip road onto the motorway, is to match their speed to that of the motorway traffic before joining it. A couple of times now a car has been joining the motorway ahead of me .I have slowed a little to let him come on in front of me, but in Italy, they seem to treat the slip road as a junction: stop ,and then join. So on these occasions, I have slowed, the driver on the slip road slows, until we are both nearly stationary. I have given up trying to let them in now. Often you see stationary cars at the end of slip roads, trying to join the motorway.
The only feasible way out of Deiva Marina was to climb back to the motorway. By the time I left the campsite I still had seen absolutely no sign of anyone, even though I was parked only 20 yards from the reception kiosk. Before leaving I tried ringing the campsite number-no answer-so finally I just had to leave without paying. The showers were hot but there was nobody home!
Quite soon into the journey the motorway actually descended to a narrow coastal plain near La Spezia-so no more tunnels! The mountains were still high to my left (the east) and on each descending ridge from them was perched a hill town. I would imagine that the defensive strategy was that the armies taking the easy route along the plain couldn’t be bothered to slog up the mountains to each little town. At one point the steep jagged mountains had had great slices taken out of them, on the most impossible cliffs and pinnacles. As I momentarily wondered what this was, I passed the sign to Carrara, and realised they were the famous marble quarries.
Very soon I was skirting Pisa. Having visited the leaning tower twice already, and found the rest of Pisa to be rather an unpleasant place, I was happy just to give the tower and Duomo a wave as I passed them . At Pisa I came off the motorway, for now the roads were much more horizontal. For 160 km I paid this time 8 Euro, a cheaper rate: but the man in the toll booth-(at last, a manned toll booth!) was having such a heated argument with a woman in there with him, that I’ve no idea if he charged me the correct rate.
One thing Italian drivers seem incapable of doing is ,when coming down a slip road onto the motorway, is to match their speed to that of the motorway traffic before joining it. A couple of times now a car has been joining the motorway ahead of me .I have slowed a little to let him come on in front of me, but in Italy, they seem to treat the slip road as a junction: stop ,and then join. So on these occasions, I have slowed, the driver on the slip road slows, until we are both nearly stationary. I have given up trying to let them in now. Often you see stationary cars at the end of slip roads, trying to join the motorway.
San Gimignano I stopped for lunch at San Gimignano, and renewed my acquaintance with the famous towers. I managed to find a free carpark(both in the sense having a space, and there being no charge) The joys of visiting off-season! Together with the British having bombed Genoa cathedral, and the Americans destroying a lot of the murals in the Pisa’s Campo de Miracoli with a bomb, the Germans nearly blew up the towers of San Gimignano ,in the war, to prevent them being used as observation posts, and were only stopped by Maggie Smith and Judy Dench (He’s thinking of the film ‘Tea with Mussolini ’ : Ed)
Actually, for a fantastic description of what the war meant in this area, I recommend reading “War in Val D’Orcia” by Iris Origo, who was an Englishwoman who had married an Italian Count, and together taken on a large farming estate. Her war diary is absolutely fascinating. She risked everything to provide help for a succession of orphaned children, Jews, escaped British POWs, and Italian partisans.
Actually, for a fantastic description of what the war meant in this area, I recommend reading “War in Val D’Orcia” by Iris Origo, who was an Englishwoman who had married an Italian Count, and together taken on a large farming estate. Her war diary is absolutely fascinating. She risked everything to provide help for a succession of orphaned children, Jews, escaped British POWs, and Italian partisans.
So ,on to Siena, and I stopped in the town’s campsite, Camping Colleverde , a couple of miles out from the centre and caught the bus into town. I visited the Duomo. I have been there before but I had almost forgotten just how breathtaking this 13th century building is. Other than that, I had a good explore and walk around. The weather was just too cold for any of the cafes in the Piazza del Campo (where the Palio is run) to have outside customers, and the excellent ice cream shops had few takers either.
 The Piazza del Campo, Siena |  the Duomo ,Siena |
 the Duomo's pulpit (by Pisano,1265) |  frescos in the Duomo library |
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