Several years ago we visited San Gimignano. This is a beautiful town with many 12-13th century towers. It is a town that the tourists have found (Yes, we confess, us included). Our landlady then for our apartment, Barbara, was so nice to us. Her family also owns a Pasticceria (Pastry shop/café) on the main street of the town within the city walls. We visited her again today at her shop and rekindled acquaintances. It is nice to know people from far away places. She was shocked to see us but remembered us. We had “due cappuccini e due pasti”. Our Italian is improving - Two cappuccinos and two pastries.

Since we had seen the town before, Ann’s desire was to visit the museums this time. We did. Now there are museums and there are museums. In this little town in Tuscany, the artifacts I saw were amazing. There was a 6 foot tall wooden sculpture of Jesus on the cross dated from the early 1200s. Now that is old! More interesting it was not behind anything. I can now say I touched a wooden religious artifact that is almost 900 years old. Ann was horrified but I did only touch the back at the bottom and no alarms went off. We wandered through this wonderful passage to the past – up close and personal.

Now, about my rant yesterday concerning Catholicism, today we visited the cathedral of San Gimignano. The church dated from the 1100s. This was a completely frescoed church interior. The right walls depicted 26 scenes from the Old Testament and the left walls showed the same number from the New Testament. This was not decoration. These frescos were the story of the Bible in picture form for the illiterate members of the church to “read”. I liked this cathedral. No excessive frills or display of gold, silver and jewels.

We drove for four hours today. The car now shows 3700 kilometers (2100 miles). We are half way through our adventure.

In the early evening I went out to get an English newspaper for my passaginata. In front of the apartment I met up with Maurizio and Natasha – who gave us the keys to the apartment when we arrived. We talked long and passionately (as Italians do) about every topic under the sun. I found out that Natasha was not from Italy (hence the name). Maurizio met her while he was on holiday in Kiev. After several trips there they married and she moved to Florence with him. They were married in Kiev in a civil ceremony then again in Italy in an Eastern Orthodox Church. Maurizio said that the Eastern Orthodox priest had no problems marrying him, a western Catholic, as long as he provided enough money! Interestingly, Natasha could speak no Italian when they met and Maurizio could speak no Russian. They conversed in English. Ah, apparently Italian is not the true language of love but English is. Then Giacomo came out and I got the story of how I booked the apartment with Giacomo but Maurizio was our “landlord”. These wonderful, delightful people provided the perfect passignata.

Lesson for Day 22: If I took a passignata in Woodinville there would be no one to talk to – and it would be raining.