Jimi-Town, One More Time

We spent the morning finalizing what we were going to send home, and then made our way one last time to Mailboxes, Etc. in Poggibonsi. Despite the cost, it is a great relief to be done with that. With luck, the boxes will be there to greet us when we arrive home on August 9. One has made it already, according to our son.

Because of the mailing cost, Bill and I have been hashing and rehashing what we chose to bring on this adventure, and whether we could have cut back. The reality is, of course you can cut back. We saw young kids every day get on the train carrying enormous backpacks which, in addition to their few clothes, held camping equipment and what they needed to live a very simple life in Europe. Bill and I could have each brought two shirts, two pairs of pants, one pair of good walking shoes, two pairs of underpants, and been resigned to doing a sinkful of wash every night and/or wearing pretty grungy clothes.

However, we started out the trip on a cruise ship that required some decent clothes. The several pairs of shoes we did bring (I brought a pair of Born sandals, and two pairs of Sketchers; Bill brought one pair of Ecco sandals and one pair of Merrill walking shoes) are so worn out from walking miles and miles in them that they will all likely be tossed when we return home. At the beginning of this adventure you might recall that it was very chilly, so we required some warmer clothes (of which neither of us brought many), but we have carried those clothes around with us for the past two months.

I think we did a pretty good job of figuring out the minimum we could carry given the variety of countries, climates, and venues in which we traveled. And the biggest suitcase we brought with us was, in the beginning, filled with English books to read. After completing a book, I would leave it in the hotel room with the hope that it would somehow manage to end up in the hands of an English reader. We also took some completed books to the library in Lucca, and traded some in the other day in Florence. As a result, we are down right now to the book Bill is reading, the book I am reading, and two spares to read next week in France.

So in the end, we are considering it the cost of traveling and moving on to France.

Last night we drove one more time into San Gimignano to have dinner at our favorite restaurant, the Trattoria Chiri Biri. We did it up right, with each of us having first and second course, along with some wine. Bill had the pasta with ragu and I had the tagliatini with pesto. Then he had grilled pork chops and I had (for the first time in my life) coniglia (rabbit). I must say it was delicious, and didn’t taste like chicken. It was somewhat disconcerting to be eating Bugs Bunny, but not disconcerting enough to make me stop. Rabbit is readily sold in the grocery stores and is a very common item on the Italian dinner table.

We were both so full that we didn’t even stop for gelato (shock!), but drove home instead. Bill shot this photo of San Gimignano, the tower town, which, I think, bears a strong resemblance to Manhattan from a distance!