Portafortuna Travel Pages
Stranded in San Gimignano:
A Portafortuna Community article
Special Destinations


by Tom Orr

As we started the last week of our tour in northern and central Italy, we departed the city of Lucca and headed toward our destination of Betolle just outside of Siena. As we drove south along the highway, our brother-in-law, who is Italian and accompanied us on the trip, said we really should see San Gimignano, the tower city of Tuscany.

San Gimignano vineyard We found a place to park the car and walked the city streets and browsed in some of the many fine shops. We then had lunch and decided it was time to get back on the road to Siena. We drove out the backside of town and soon wound up in a vineyard. When it was discovered there was no road out, we turned around and attempted to get back to town. However, since we had a front wheel drive station wagon and it was a grassy vineyard avenue that we had to traverse, we slid back into a vine row end post and could go no further. My brother-in-law decided he would walk back to town to get help. About thirty minutes later he returned with the local carabinieri who assessed the situation and decided we needed a tow truck. When we asked approximately how long it would take for one to arrive we were told “about three days” because they would have to come all the way from Florence.

They then suggested that they go speak with the farmer who owned the vineyard. Another twenty minutes went by and we could hear a tractor coming over the hill. The farmer and his son brought some cable and attached it to our car. They told us it wasn’t the first time that this had happened and quickly towed us to the top of the hill.

We thanked them profusely and offered to pay them for their kind services, but they politely refused. Then my brother-in-law decided to offer them a nice bottle of grappa that we had purchased in town. After a little arm twisting, the farmer was driving away on his tractor with the bottle of grappa securely tucked under his arm. All in all, we considered our rescue quite a bargain and we soon departed once again for Siena.

This story was submitted by a member of the Portafortuna Community. Portafortuna Community articles do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the webmaster and are submitted by readers wishing to share their experiences with others. If you would like to submit an article, story, etc., please contact the webmaster at the e-mail address on the bottom of this page.

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Last modified: 09/23/2004 10:15:03 AM
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