Blogs from San Gimignano, Tuscany, Italy, Europe - page 8

The Pastry shop? Yes, the pastry shop. In fact, the owners of our little apartment-room also owned a pastry shop, which was where we went for check-in, payment of our stay, and often mass confusion when encountering their gruff, Italian only speaking shopkeeper. However, this was by far the best B&B yet! Our own apartment, with a view of endless vineyards and rolling Tuscan hills! The town itself it filled with medival architecture - towers, templar churches, and gazillion-year old buildings. Its beautiful there. Greg flipped out over the endless supply of fancy olive oils, wild boar proscuitto, buffalo's milk mozzarella and wine! This was definately the relaxing part of the vacation. Not too much sightseeing to do, just enjoying our stay. However, I was sad to find out that the bike rental shop was closed ... read more

Day 5…Getting to San Donato Up and on the go early in the morning we said our farewells to Florence and headed for the train station. Our next destination was a farmhouse/vineyard located in San Donato, a tiny medieval village located about 5 miles from San Gimignano, in the heart of Tuscany. With the two of us being wine lovers (especially Chianti/Sangiovese) this destination was especially exciting for us. Arriving here however proved to be a little more difficult than anticipated…and not because I never researched my butt off before we left! First we had to get the train from Florence to Poggibonsi. No problems here. After waiting in Poggibonsi for a while for the bus (where we discovered why there is such a big fuss over Gelato…mmm…Gelato) we were off to San Gimignano. The sights ... read more

I have just added quite a few new people to my subscriber list so I figured I should give some pointers for using the site. Even though you've been sent a link for this entry only, you can read all of my other entries by clicking on Previous Entry or Journals by MaryMPool at the bottow of the page. Also, you can add a comment (everyone can see these) or click the Contact MaryMPool icon at the bottom and send me a message (these come directly to my email inbox and no one else can see them). I look forward to talking hearing from everyone! P.S. I've also added pictures for my previous Italy entries if you want to go back and look. :-) The bus returned me safely and without incident to the Santa Maria ... read more

It is hard to believe we have come to the end of our time at Castellina in Chianti and will head to the south of Italy tomorrow. We have had a busy week fitting in the things we wanted to do before we left. We revisited our shopping mecca-The Mall on Monday and purchased a few more items to add to our already excess baggage. It’s lucky we don’t have this in Australia! Tuesday we had a scenic drive to Volterra which lies in the hills of Tuscany. It is a walled town and is the major producer of Alabaster, a white stone. It has Etruscan origins which makes it a very touristy place. From there we drove to San Gimignano which was a favourite spot. It too is a walled town in the hills and ... read more

After leaving Siena, we stopped by the midieval town of San Gimignano. The town itself is a upward hill, and we were only given 1 1/2 hours in the city. This was just enough time to make it to the top of the slope, enjoy the view, and then return. The view was nice though. :)... read more