2008 ITALIAN ODYSSEY - Sansepolcro

Monday September 29, 2008 – Sansepolcro

After another excellent breakfast at Hotel Alla Torre – Tower Hotel – we eased the car out of the parking garage and were off to Sansepolcro, our next stop, a journey of about 300 km/185 miles which we expected to do in a little over three hours using the  autostrada. All went well after we overruled TomTom on a stretch of road near Loreggia. Apparently the road we were travelling on had  not been built when Tom was programmed, so he kept telling us that we were in maize fields and urged us to get back on the old road.

He was more useful when we came to the several complex interchanges, some with toll booths, on the way. We were tempted to pop into Padua or Bologna as we bye-passed these two cities, but decided to press on. There was not much traffic and few road works so we made good time and were only a few minutes later than our original ETA.

The second arch is the garage entrance

The Hotel we had booked was the Albergo Florentino in the Old Town and we were guided there unerringly by our electronic pal. Once there, for some unaccountable reason, we abandoned all our home grown rules for choosing a hotel when travelling, the most basic being that you never take an offer from an hotel without inspecting the accommodation – that’s Rab’s job; mine is to negotiate the best price. But here we were, accepting what was being offered, sight unseen.

Car parking was provided but the entrance to the garage was so tight in such a narrow lane that I scraped the car going in – and I’m not sure it will polish out this time. I lugged the main case and several supplementary items into the hotel and it was only then that we found that our room was on the third floor – and there was no lift! Of course we should have declined to go any further there and then, but we pressed on – up four flights of stairs as it  turned out – 72 steps in all. I took things very slowly – my heart medication causes some problems with prolonged effort of this sort – but even then it was a long way up.

 

Not quite the view we had in mind.

The room was small, the promised view was of tiled roofs festooned with TV aerials and the access to the ‘roof garden’  was down a flight of stairs and out onto an area cluttered with all manner of rubbish. We asked for a room on a lower level and were offered one which looked out onto the street. It was minute – I could hardly move around in it and it contained two beds with sagging mattresses and unmatched covers. In a word or two it was “quaint” – and awful. Rab and I looked at each other and as one decided that we couldn’t take that level of discomfort.

The proprietor was very pleasant and took no umbrage at our rejection of her offerings. We manoeuvred the car carefully out of the garage and made our way up the hill a little to the Hotel La Balestra. I thought the name might refer to whales, confusing balena  with balestra which are actually crossbows since the family which owns the hotel has been involved in that sport for the past 400 or 500 years. Another excellent hotel with everything spick and span – and we ate in the hotel restaurant tonight and had a very pleasant meal – and we had our own small piazza off the bedroom – an area with a table and chairs sheltered from view but open to the air.

Mother and daughter

We wandered around the town this afternoon and Rab’s eyes lit up when she heard that there is a market tomorrow. We’ll tour around after the market. It is a lovely old town – just what we had in mind as a typical Italian town. Old churches, lovely buildings and some interesting statues. I particularly liked one of a young girl leaning over the shoulder of an older woman making lace. Sitting at a sidewalk café, sipping on our wonderful coffee we couldn’t help grinning at our good fortune.