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lillibetWe got a late start, not leaving the villa until around eleven. It was hard to tear ourselves away from the television, but when it was clear the stories were just recycling and there was unlikely to be any actual news, it seemed foolish not to go ahead and be in Italy.
The suggested route to San Gimignano involved going up the autostrada to Florence and then back down toward Siena, so we did that and hit some very nasty traffic around construction just past the next exit north. As we sat in traffic, the song "Leaving on a Jet Plane" came on the radio and we all sat there, crying. Past that exit it was pretty clear sailing. Finding parking was rather a chore, but eventually we found a lot that not only had space, but was free.
We hiked up the stairs and through the walls into town at the Piazza San Agostino. We'd brought with us the various meats and cheeses we'd bought and made a picnic of them on the steps of the church, which was closed for the lunch hour. After lunch we walked up the main street of town, peering into lots of little shops.
San Gimignano is famous for its towers, known as the Tuscan Manhattan. At their heydey in the early Renaissance there were as many as eighty, but today only fifteen are left and only one, the Torre Grossa, is open to the public. We climbed up that (about 200 steps--piece of cake after the Duomo's 463) and enjoyed the excellent view of the town and the surrounding area. It was funny to look down on the roofs of the other towers and see people sunbathing on one of them.
Back on ground level, we walked through the small Museo Civico that's part of the same building and then made our way back to the car, with a few stops to pick up various gifts and souvenirs that had caught our fancy.
We drove on south to Siena, parked on the opposite side of town from the lot we'd found on our last visit, and made our way to the Campo, the steep, round piazza at the center of town. It was fun to watch small children running around in the piazza, enjoying the tilt of the ground. We visited the Museo Civico there and enjoyed their lovely mosaics and the frescoes, one of which holds the title of the earliest landscape in Western art.
From there we walked up to the Duomo. The designers apparently took Pisa's concept of alternating white and dark marbles to extremes and everything there is in stripes. The church has a very unusual pavement, with "graffito" style tombs and decorative sections depicting the lives of saints. It's mostly black & white and looks rather like a Renaissance coloring book. One of the altars has four statues done by a young Michelangelo and there's a statue of John the Baptist by Donatello, in addition to the stunning Libreria Piccolomini, covered in frescoes by Pinturicchio that show scenes form the life of Aeneas Piccolomini, who became Pope Pius II. The library also contains many beautifully illuminated manuscripts of choral music.
Leaving the Duomo, we were disappointed to find that the Baptistery at the rear of the building had already closed, but we enjoyed looking at the remains of an unfinished "addition" to the church which would have made the current nave into the transept of a much larger building. The project began in the 1330's and was halted by the plague in 1348, which reduced the population by one-third to one-half and eliminated not only the economic resources for the construction, but also the need for a larger church.
We wandered around the town looking at our options for dinner and finally settled on La Taverna. The service was very slow and somewhat strange and fussy, but the food was fine. For antipasto we had mixed salume and pheasant pate served with pumpkin cream. The four of us shared two bowls of porcini mushroom soup that was tasty, made with broth instead of cream. Trish and Jason both had the chicken in almond milk with dried fruit that the menu described as a typical dish of Renaissance Siena, while I had wild boar and Steve tried the stuffed rabbit. Unlike everywhere else we ate, they had no house wine, so Jason chose a Rosso di Montepulciano that was very drinkable. We knew it would be a long drive home, so rather than wait for desserts there, we grabbed some gelato in the Campo and headed back to the car. My wrists had decided to take exception to my wrestling the car up and down the mountain roads and were giving me a lot of pain, so Jason drove us home over a fairly complicated route that cut our journey in half. We all watched TV for a while before getting to bed, trying to keep up with the events in the States.
Next, once more into Firenze...
The suggested route to San Gimignano involved going up the autostrada to Florence and then back down toward Siena, so we did that and hit some very nasty traffic around construction just past the next exit north. As we sat in traffic, the song "Leaving on a Jet Plane" came on the radio and we all sat there, crying. Past that exit it was pretty clear sailing. Finding parking was rather a chore, but eventually we found a lot that not only had space, but was free.
We hiked up the stairs and through the walls into town at the Piazza San Agostino. We'd brought with us the various meats and cheeses we'd bought and made a picnic of them on the steps of the church, which was closed for the lunch hour. After lunch we walked up the main street of town, peering into lots of little shops.
San Gimignano is famous for its towers, known as the Tuscan Manhattan. At their heydey in the early Renaissance there were as many as eighty, but today only fifteen are left and only one, the Torre Grossa, is open to the public. We climbed up that (about 200 steps--piece of cake after the Duomo's 463) and enjoyed the excellent view of the town and the surrounding area. It was funny to look down on the roofs of the other towers and see people sunbathing on one of them.
Back on ground level, we walked through the small Museo Civico that's part of the same building and then made our way back to the car, with a few stops to pick up various gifts and souvenirs that had caught our fancy.
We drove on south to Siena, parked on the opposite side of town from the lot we'd found on our last visit, and made our way to the Campo, the steep, round piazza at the center of town. It was fun to watch small children running around in the piazza, enjoying the tilt of the ground. We visited the Museo Civico there and enjoyed their lovely mosaics and the frescoes, one of which holds the title of the earliest landscape in Western art.
From there we walked up to the Duomo. The designers apparently took Pisa's concept of alternating white and dark marbles to extremes and everything there is in stripes. The church has a very unusual pavement, with "graffito" style tombs and decorative sections depicting the lives of saints. It's mostly black & white and looks rather like a Renaissance coloring book. One of the altars has four statues done by a young Michelangelo and there's a statue of John the Baptist by Donatello, in addition to the stunning Libreria Piccolomini, covered in frescoes by Pinturicchio that show scenes form the life of Aeneas Piccolomini, who became Pope Pius II. The library also contains many beautifully illuminated manuscripts of choral music.
Leaving the Duomo, we were disappointed to find that the Baptistery at the rear of the building had already closed, but we enjoyed looking at the remains of an unfinished "addition" to the church which would have made the current nave into the transept of a much larger building. The project began in the 1330's and was halted by the plague in 1348, which reduced the population by one-third to one-half and eliminated not only the economic resources for the construction, but also the need for a larger church.
We wandered around the town looking at our options for dinner and finally settled on La Taverna. The service was very slow and somewhat strange and fussy, but the food was fine. For antipasto we had mixed salume and pheasant pate served with pumpkin cream. The four of us shared two bowls of porcini mushroom soup that was tasty, made with broth instead of cream. Trish and Jason both had the chicken in almond milk with dried fruit that the menu described as a typical dish of Renaissance Siena, while I had wild boar and Steve tried the stuffed rabbit. Unlike everywhere else we ate, they had no house wine, so Jason chose a Rosso di Montepulciano that was very drinkable. We knew it would be a long drive home, so rather than wait for desserts there, we grabbed some gelato in the Campo and headed back to the car. My wrists had decided to take exception to my wrestling the car up and down the mountain roads and were giving me a lot of pain, so Jason drove us home over a fairly complicated route that cut our journey in half. We all watched TV for a while before getting to bed, trying to keep up with the events in the States.
Next, once more into Firenze...
