A Day Trip to San Gimignano - August 18, 2010

 Wednesday August 18, 2010

Senne's Summary : Went to the Medieval Town of San Gimignano. Had a great day exploring, drinking wine and watching people! Also took some night time pictures of Siena.

This morning we got to change rooms at our bed and breakfast. The room I had originally requested was full for the first three days. After switching to our bigger, plusher and prettier room we headed out for our day trip to San Gimignano.

We had our bus tickets and even managed to find area 3… turns out it was clearly marked if you look in the right place 😀 The bus ride was quick and stopped in a few small towns along the way. (Poggibonsi was my favourite… it’s just fun to say!) The scenery was lovely.

As we approached the hilltop village of San Gimignano you could see its uniqueness. San Gimignano is a village with towers. Originally there were 72 built by families to show their power and wealth (honestly tall towers to show your power and wealth… seems kind of obvious… 😉). Now there are only 13 towers left standing (I think it’s 13!). Anyway, the village is beautiful.

When you get off the bus you enter the city gates and walk up a nice main street with lots of shops… wine, chocolate, bakeries, leather goods, brightly coloured ceramics… the regular Tuscan fare.

We walked to the "punta panoramico" (viewpoint) and admired the view and then walked into the town square. There were lots of amazing buildings to take pictures of and lots of things for me to look at while Steve waited for everybody to get out of his picture 😀

We decided to have lunch at a little sidewalk café (Is it a sidewalk café if it’s out in the square?) so we could enjoy some wine and relax… and that’s exactly what we did.

Can you see me drinking wine? What a glorious way to spend an afternoon!

The little girl at the table across from us was so entranced by my dessert I was certain she might come over and join us. When we left Steve gave her the sparkly thing (think little umbrella in your drink, but different) that was in the ice cream and she was quite happy!

We also discovered “white pizza” today (no tomato sauce). Think flat bread with garlic, olive oil, basil, tomato and parmesan. YUM!

People really love their dogs here and seem to take them everywhere. One lady actually brought her dog to the restaurant and let him sit on his own chair. I’m NOT making this up. (We snapped a picture of him later riding in the back of the baby’s stroller 😀)

This dog also enjoys having his own special chair in restaurants!

After lunch we headed through some more streets and admired buildings, puppies and Tuscan stuff. (Does anyone notice how everything seems a little more beautiful after a glass … or two… or three… of wine?)

Now a problem often arises with wine drinking… need to find a bathroom. In this town we needed specific change to use the public wc. Steve ended up having to buy a couple of diet cokes to get the right kind of change.

You need to get this. much to get the right change for the bathroom!

Then this lady thinks she's going to cut in front of me in line....not happening… I already had to wait while we found the wc, found the correct change, etc… (I may have used my teacher look on her!)

Don't even think about it lady!

We caught the bus home (back through Poggibonsi again!) and went home for a little rest.

In the evening we went out and grabbed some pizza and then had a gelato in the Piazza Del Campo. We decided to take some night picture because Siena looks so beautiful at night.

You stumble upon beautiful buildings like this as you wander around at night!

The Piazza del Campo is a great place to just sit and people watch, and is particularly beautiful at night.

Finally Steve comes to sit with me and takes one final picture before I make him put the camera away.