As I opened my bleary eyes I kept hearing a strange whistling. I crept out of bed and peeked over the top of the blinds only to see a policeman, in the road behind us, dressed in what appeared to be an oversized romper suit, waving his arms about, Italian stylee and blowing his whistle, all to no great effect.
Having got dressed and breakfasted we could see through our window there were a few orange cones in the road, so I went out to inspect further. My best guess was that there was to be a race of some kind and the policeman had nothing better to do while he waited than to practise blowing his whistle and directing traffic, even though nobody seemed to be paying him any attention. Sure enough, eventually two whippet thin Africans came haring past the ineffectual plod and then literally five minutes later the first of the rest of the field.
We made our way into Pistoia, as the stragglers made there way past us, towards the centre.
The whole of Central and Northern Italy during the Renaissance period of the 14thto 16thcenturies, was made up of a series of city states. Pistoia was one of these although eventually fell under the control of the nearby and more powerful Florence. Much of Central Pistoia has remained unchanged since that date and it was a joy to behold.
Florence, Siena, Pisa and the rest get all the tourists, but really Pistoia, although smaller, challenges all of these for its beauty. The highlight of the town is its central piazza which takes your breath away as you enter it. A solid town hall, an elegant Campanile, a fairly plain but beautifully proportioned Cathedral and a magnificent Baptistry constructed of alternating bands of light and dark marble.
As we wandered around the old town we came across little squares, numerous pretty churches and a medieval hospital with a lovely colourful frieze right around the building. It is the sort of place where you could wander for many hours discovering new nooks and crannies.
We eventually bid goodbye to Pistoia after lunch and set sail for Volterra the next place on my planned itinerary. After one and half hours of driving through the lovely rolling hills of the Tuscan countryside with its numerous hilltop villages and isolated farmsteads, all punctuated by the ubiquitous tall thin Italian Cypress’, we got to about 3 miles from our destination when we were stopped by a policeman standing in the road. This policeman was wearing a proper uniform rather than a romper suit, much to my relief. He proceeded to tell me that Volterra was shut and I would have to turn round. I’m afraid my Italian was not up to finding out any more than that the town was totally closed and I together with everyone else had to perform a 180 degree turn.
After a quick conference we decided to head to our next destination a day early. Unfortunately Arezzo was another two hour drive and so what had intended to be an easy driving day turned into a near four hour slog. We finally arrived at the aire in Arezzo which wanted eight of our hard earned Euros to park. Across the road we saw a number of Italian motorhomes parked in a free car park and so we have joined them. Arezzo beckons tomorrow.
