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Blogs from San Gimignano, Tuscany, Italy, Europe
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October 21st 2012
Sunday Oct 21st Went on a tour to San Giamignano, Siena and a winery. San Giamignano was the favorite. It is a small walled city little changed from medievil times. At least in the look of the buildings. 13 fortified towers still exist. Like old Florence there are few if any cars. Siena has a large piazza and its own Duomo. It is ornate but not as large or impressive as Florence and the dome is not very visible. The winery was fun. Learned how balsamic vinegar was made too.... read more
June 18th 2012
Day 37 A lazy day today. Wake and do breakfast (yes, food again but when it is included and you get choices of fresh meats, cheeses, freshly picked cherries or apricots it's hard to knock back......). Decide to just visit the township of San Gimignano. Another walled city but this one has lots of towers. These towers differ from others we have seen as they were built to show off rather than for protection from invaders. Originally there were over 20 towers, each taller and grander then the other. There are now only 7 left, but when you look around the area lots of houses have their own little tower (the place we are staying has one). Some shopping and then back for domestic duties and a swim. Meet 2 Dutch couples around the pool and ... read more
June 16th 2012
Day 35 Happy birthday Stephanie. We send a Viber message at midnight our time so it gets there early on her birthday. Wake up and go upstairs to the WiFi to Skype home for birthday wishes, etc. Connection good and Stephanie, Charlie and Jessica are on screen. Greeted by Charlie saying in surprise that he could see poppy and nanny. Good to talk and see all of them. We speak for about 20 mins finding out what has been happening at home. Not missing the cold and wet..... Get organized and leave for the day in Florence which is about an hour away. Get good advice from the receptionist at the farm (they are all too happy to help which is great) and get to the Piazelle Michelangelo where we park the car for free. This ... read more
June 15th 2012
Day 34 Wake to another beautiful day, sun shining and hardly a cloud in the sky - jealous yet? Chris has a morning hair appointment so I pack bags and the car and get organized. Chris gets back all shorn and much happier with her Italian hair cut. Not a lot of chatter as the hairdresser has no English. Even though she took the Italian phrase book, it was of no real use. They communicated by sign language and the hair cut turned out as requested. We say farewell to our host and one of the English speaking receptionists who had given us some really good advice on the tourist things, etc. Photos of the hotel, with our latest friend and we decide to go the other way to have a look ath thentinynvillage up the ... read more
October 7th 2011
Friday, October-07-11 Exploring the area around San Gimignano Today the weather turned. It was much cooler and the wind was blowing like a hurricane. I needed to wash clothes and had to bring most of them inside to dry in the apartment as I was afraid they would blow to the neighbours. We got a bit of rain on and off today but never enough to affect us. We did confirm a place to stay for Saturday. We will be at another agroturismo west of Perugia,right on the border with Tuscany. That was a relief. We have been trying to mail postcards home for several days, but everytime we find a post office it is closed for the day. They all seem to close between noon and 1pm. Today we made sure to go into town ... read more
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October 5th 2011
Wednesday, October 5 San Gimignano We had a leisurely morning at the farm. We walked through the vineyards and olive groves. We also walked around the other older home on the property. It was built in the 1300s. It is in pretty bad shape but his 92 year grandma lives there. He said it will stay as is until she is no longer there and after that he will restore it. Probably for his home and a few apartments. It is still in the traditional style with the living area on the second floor and farm storage (and originally animals) on the lower level. We headed into town mid afternoon as we had a very special afternoon ahead of us. Stefano had arranged for us to join 2 other couples for an afternoon and evening of ... read more
October 2nd 2011
Sunday Oct 2 San Gimignano Today we decided to walk from the apartment (farm) into San Gimignano. It was about a ½ hr walk in. You start on the hill of the farm, down into the valley and then back up the hill on the other side to get to the base of the town, then up into the town. My legs will be in better shape by the time we leave here with all the climbing! It was another 30 degree day so by the time we walked into town in the sun I was pouring sweat even if it was only 10:30 am. San Gimignano is a really neat city. It is popular with tourists so fairly busy, but even within the wall of the city, you could wander down side streets with no ... read more
October 1st 2011
Today was our day to check out of our hotel and head to the country. However check out time wasn’t until noon so we planned to get up early, have breakfast and then be at the Duomo well ahead of the 10 am opening time so we could tour the dome before it got to busy. Then we would visit the 2 market areas again before heading out. Well, that was a good plan. However it appears the time change was still affecting us as we slept in - until 11:30!!!! Claude has never slept that long in his life! So, by that point we only had time to pack and check out. No breakfast, no Duomo. We had quite a chuckle about it. I had woken up a few times but since Claude was still ... read more
September 27th 2011
OMG, I have never been so excited to see a supermarket open, as I was yesterday afternoon. We arrived in San Gimignano to a lovely self contained rural house, and no groceries. Ready to give up at about 4pm on Sunday(yesterday), and even going so far as saying a prayer to find the supermarket and have it be open, we found a PAM (like woolies, but only Italian style foods). Might I add this is only the 3rd supermarket we have seen since arriving in Italy over 3 weeks ago. We have been wondering where the locals shop and decided it must be at the local market on market day, and too bad if you work that day. There are no shopping malls, the biggest we have seen is a supermarket with about 5 shops/cafes along ... read more
September 25th 2011
Well after half a day we are ready to give up and give the car back to the rental hire people! After nearly not getting it, as our credit card, although it had enough credit, was refused, and they don't take debit card or cash, I remembered I had brought a second one as a desperate backstop and stored it in a different location in case luggage was stolen or went missing. Many an argument was had at the Hertz counter today. We had booked a GPS and resigned ourselves first to the cost of 78 Euro, then had an email saying it was an extra 50E for the GPS being returned to a different area, and after our mad unsuccessful dash to purchase a Europe card for our own one, we booked the GPS at ... read more
