Our first POI of the day was just a 15-minute ride up the road, Monteriggioni, a walled village dating back to the 13th century, and perched on a hill overlooking the Chianti region of Tuscany. Apparently, there are only 50 permanent residents, the place is so tiny. You could walk around the place in about 20 minutes, we took a little bit longer taking photos.
Our second POI, was a castle, purely a stop to get a photo, La Rocca di Staggio castle. I don't have any interesting facts about it, you can Google it if you're interested, so here's the photo, with some clown on his motorbike spoiling it! 🤣
Following the road from the castle we came to a barrier, the road was closed. For the next 10 minutes we rode up and down, trying to get some sense and an alternative route out of Tomtom. Eventually I took things into my own hands and managed, via a short motorway section, to get us around the closed section of road.
Our third stop was our fuel stop, just outside Lucca. It was also a POI but not Point of Interest, Person of Interest. We'd been in communication with our Italian chum, whom we met on the William Walker (Dudley) Memorial Tour back in 2014, and he was keen to meet up, as we were passing, about 115 miles from his home near lake Garda! I'd given him the location of the fuel stop and he agreed to meet us. True to his word, he was there and just filling his bike when we arrived.
We found a place down the road to have a snack and drink whilst we chatted, then we set off in convoy. Lorenzo had said he'd ride some of the way to La Spezia with us but in the end, he came all the way to our hotel. Once checked in, we had a chat and a drink, before he set off for home, 2h30m away.
It was good to meet up again, 8 years on, and we really appreciated the effort he made to come and see us.
The hotel is up in the hills overlooking La Spezia. We don't have the view, from our booking.com room but a little walk up the road and you get this.
This was our third double bed error and second in a row. There was no problem changing but this twin room is up on the second floor, there's no lift, and it's right at the end of a long corridor!
There's no evening meal at the hotel but there was a pizzeria/bar 5 minutes away.
We went round the corner, drank some beer and ate some food. I had a salad tonight.
That pretty much takes care of another day. Tomorrow we are heading for a place called Alba. Grizzly Fish is predicting rain for the afternoon. I think you know his thoughts on donning waterproofs. 🤣
Ciao.
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