3rd May 2016. Geneva to Buonconvento by public transport.
Setting off again…with the objective to get to Rome
9.5 hour journey on bus, tram, and 4 trains
Hopefully this will be my final journey on the Italian section of the Via Francigena but only time will tell… I just realized, by my train ticket, that I set off on the same date last year. I have decided to return to Buonconvento which is the last little town I walked through last year before having my knee problem.
I set off before 7am and arrived in Buonconvento at 16:15 where I spent the night.
I returned to the little cafe/pastry shop I remembered from last year and had a lovely hot cup of tea with an absolutely delicious little cake (which I thought would be with almond and pine nuts, as in Geneva, but it had pieces of orange in it).
In the cafe there were three old bicycles up on the walls and another in the vertical display window outside. There were other small shops and wine bars which also had old bikes displayed. I thought it might be for the Giro d’Italia which starts in 3 days time in Holland (my nephew Michael who spent the last two night with me was going to Holland today to get ready to participate with his team), but it seems that this past long weekend there was an annual cycle race called Eroica which can only be ridden on old fashioned bikes. There are 4 different routes from and around Buonconvento of 209 km each and this is obviously an important event in the Buonconvento calendar. I mentioned this event to Michael who knows about it and would like to do it. It seems the same event also takes place in Spain and the U.K.
After a forgettable dinner I checked up on tomorrow’s stage to San Quirico d’Orcia and updated my new but very simple blog (am adding previous years’ entries to get practice at it…) and then went to bed to try to get a good night’s sleep for the morrow.
