San Gimignano with my Parents

  San Gimignano, Tuscany, Italy
Friday, October 10, 2008

On Friday I took my parents to a town in Tuscany called San Gimignano.  I had had such a wonderful time in Cortona the weekend before that I really wanted my parents to get to see a Tuscan town and have a similiar experience.  I researched a bunch of towns and this one was the one that looked the best and the easiest to get to.  We took a train at about 9 in the morning and it took us a little under an hour and a half to get there.  Once we got there we took a bus up to the Town.

San Gimignano is a mideval town that is famous for its four towers.  There used to be fourteen but there are only four that you can see today.  We had a wonderful time exploring the town.  We walked through the town archway and looked in the little shops on the way into the town. 

View

Then we found an area were you could see a panoramic view.  Here we got a  nice view of the beautiful Tuscan countryside.

Main Plaza

We continued on to the two main squares. 

Tower

There we bought a ticket to climb up the tower. We climbed up a number of steps and at the top got a view of the town.  My dad is afraid of heights but we were proud of him because he made it to the top, although he did not stay as long. 

After climbing the tower we were hungry for lunch. I wanted my parents to get to go to an Enoteca (wine bar) like we did in Cortona so we searched for a wine bar that had a good lunch menu too.  We were drawn in by this one that had a sine for free wine tasting.  We later found this to mean one sip of one type of wine but we each ordered our own glass as well.  My mom and I got white and my dad got red and the glasses of which the lady brought to us in large sized glasses.  My mom was a little tipsy from such a big glass in the afternoon and it was entertaining :-) We ordered three things and shared them: bruschetta, salad, and a panini. We had a nice meal and enjoyed the quaint wine bar. 

Gelato!

Afterwards we went back to the main square and had some award winning gelato (they had a sign that said they were world champions) yummm.

 Afterwards we went back to this square that we had seen an orchestra setting up in and when we got there they were playing.  They had an orchestra and some brass instruments as well and they performed a nice little concert.  They were a group from Germany that must have just been traveling from town to town.  We really enjoyed the music and my mom got a nice little nap.  We felt really lucky to catch the day that this little group was performing.

Church

Next we went into see the church.  From the outside it is a modest looking church but the inside is adorned with beautiful frescos.  My favorite part was how they designed it to have stories of the old testament on one side and the new testament on the other side.  We listened to an information box that pointed out a lot of the stories and it was really interesting.  I imagine it would be a helfpul way to learn bible stories.  The church was such a beautiful place and I was glad we got to see such a pretty building. Afterwards we purchased a few things in the shops (biscotti and cream lemoncello for my parents to try) and took the bus/train home.  I was happy because my parents really enjoyed getting to see a less tourist part of Tuscay.