Day 1: Florence to Pontassieve

 September 1, 2022

12.5 miles, 1000 ft of elevation gain

We started walking around 7:15 this morning. I quickly realized that I have way too much stuff in my backpack. I trained with about 16 pounds and I’m walking with about 20 pounds. Those four pounds make a huge difference. 

The walk went for about five miles along the River Arno, leaving Florence.

Then we turned away from the river and headed into the countryside, past olive orchards and vineyards. 

We were over five miles in before we saw the first signs for the walk, but after that there were signs at various intervals and we only had to backtrack a few times.

In the entire day, we only saw one group of four people from Australia hiking the Via. Very different from the Spanish camino, in which we were surrounded with people every day. 

I limped into our destination of Pontassieve in the middle of a hot, hot day. We checked into our hotel, Toscani da Sempre, where the desk clerk advised us to go take a shower immediately.😂 We did as we were told, washed our clothes and ourselves, and then went into town anticipating a huge lunch. Another difference between Spain and Italy, the whole town here was shut down between 1:00 and 4:00. We walked up and down the street and finally found a nice Italian young man in a cafe who would make us a salad. A beer, water, and ice cream for dessert. Perfecto.

We also visited a Coop store, described as like an Italian Walmart. The woman at the checkout overheard us speaking English, apologized to us and switched to English. Then she apologized again for her poor pronunciation of English. I can’t imagine people in the US switching to a foreign language to accommodate non-English speakers.