San Gimignano

15 March 2014... Located outside of Florence, in the Tuscan countryside, is the town of San Gimignano. This is a photo of the countryside.

This is a photo of San Gimignano.

The town was another medieval hilltop city. It is most famous for its towers.

Away from the main streets were tight passages, many quite picturesque.

This is one of the main piazzas in the city. Although much of the city catered to tourists, it did so in a good way. And the tourists who were there (like us), seemed to all be respectable travelers, truly interested in seeing the things that truly make Italy great, versus the hordes of annoying tourists that typically are found in only the major cities.

This is a panorama of another Piazza, adjacent to the last one. This is the main church in the town, and adjacent is the tallest tower in town. San Gimignano is quite famous for their towers. There are 14 of them today, but at one point there were 72 towers.

This is the inside of the church. It is romanesque and dates back to 1148. On each of the aisles, there are fresco cycles. The one this photo looks at depicts scenes from the new testament, and across the way, scenes from the old testament.

This is the scene you see when you leave the church.

The tallest tower in town, was open to be climbed, so naturally we would do just that.

The original tower had occupyable floors, but in its current state, it was completely open. If you have a fear of heights, this in NOT for you. The stairs are new and definitely sufficient, but definitely not robust enough to give a sense of safety. Also, I am fairly certain the railing is not high enough to what would satisfy American standards for such a stair. But this is Italy, and it is a tower built in 1300.

54 meters up, this is what you see.

360 degrees all around, there is a stunning view of San Gimignano, a town that seamlessly turns into pristine Tuscan countryside. It really is fantastic.

Oh, this was the top of the stairs. Don't hit your head!

This looks out to the main street that leads from the city gate (where the bus drops us off) to the main center.

Panorama.

I have committed a grave crime against all humanity, and have degraded the quality of this photo travel blog. Here is a selfie...... I have hit a new low.

Bell!

Panorama

This zoomed in photo hives a better sense of what it actualy felt like looking down at the rest of the towers and the country background.

Our tower admission got us into a museum in a different part of town. And that gave is some direction to our wondering path.

We then did some hiking around the city walls.

Sa Gimignano apparently is famous for its white wine. We stopped at this wine bar, where they had outside seating, all looking out to the countryside. The vino was pretty darn good, and it was very nice, enjoying the weather, view and fresh air, just taking it all in.

Plus the interior of the wine bar was verrry nicely renovated. Definitely some cool historic preservation interior design.

And since this gelato shop touted it's world championships as well as the Steelers do superbowl trophies, we had to give it a try. And apparently there is a world championships of gelato, and an Italian national gelato team.

One last photo of the city wall, right before we got back on the bus to Firenze. Ciao!