taxi bus donkey

Having licked my wounds clean enough to parade before the public, and attempting to keep an open mind about Firenze really being as good as people say it is… I packed my bags, left my humble lodgings at la Giaconda and headed back to the train station to make my suave departure.

I used the 10 minute walk to Santa Maria Novella to decide on where to go, although I have had a rather organic time table for this trip, I have almost managed to plan at least a few days ahead, this was the first time I was looking to hop towns without having some klind of lodging waiting for me at the other end. No sweat, had several options and most of these tuscan towns are well serviced by the rail network that has carried my ass all over the place thus far.

I was tossing up Arezzo, Cortona, Lucca, Siena. Cortona and Siena and Lucca are on the must see list, but as I planned to come back to firenze i figured the direction of Arezzo was a safer bet as it was kind of a dead end trail in Cortona. I figured I would get off at Arezzo have a quick peak around the town attempt to find a room and see how that fell together.

Arezzo is an easy 90 minute train ride from firenze, the train weaves its way through a few picturesque scenes before leaping across the border into Umbria. I arrived just after the tourist office had closed for the lunchtime break but there was enough information plastered on the walls to give me a feel of what was going onj and a list of hotels with a map in the window… what all round nice folk. In a complete about face, the first hotel i walked into which was a really nice looking 3 star located close to the station, close to everything and on a piazza which wasnt a makeshift car park or rubbish dump,.. half the price of the firenze hotels and the room was huge, 2 beds a sofa, big tv and a real shower with like a door …. a door!!! and tiles and stuff,.. big windows, yeah this would do nicely.

Arezzo is famous for lots of reasons, I had heard of it as it is the home town of all round nutter and film making type Roberto Benigni, he used the town as the setting for his movie “La Vita e bella” (life is beautiful for you challenged folk). The town had a great combination of views, lifestyle, hills but not back breaking ones and as it so happened I landed there a few days before their biannual festa, the giostra del saraceno, which as the name suggests is a joust, now if I could only get my hands on a cheap set of jousting sticks.