Blogs from San Gimignano, Tuscany, Italy, Europe - page 3

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

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

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

Geo: 43.4703, 11.0438DAY NINE (8/10) — San Gimignano, TuscanyDrive-By ShootingAlthough our day was devoted to visiting the charming hill town of San Gimignano, I couldn't resist the headline which refers to our two minutes on the outskirts of Pisa. Our itinerary didn't call for a visit to Pisa but when the crowd found out we would be passing through the town, Len agreed to have Marco, our bus driver, slow down so we could take a photo of the Leaning Tower. Wham, Bam, thank you, m'am. If you didn't get what you needed in a few brief seconds, the Leaning Tower was lost to you until some future visit.We drove through the northernmost areas of Umbria and passed into Tuscany about mid-morning. The hillsides changed from farm lands to hill country – both beautiful, but each ... read more

Nach einer kurzen Nacht, packten wir heute unsere Koffer, um nach San Gimignano aufzubrechen. Wir hatten aber noch viel Zeit und schlenderten nochmal zur Piazza della Signorina, weil Jasmin gerne die Kutschen und Pferde sehen wollte. Da heute Fiesta della Liberazione war, war gefühlt ganz Italien unterwegs, um mal Florenz zu besichtigen. Wir kauften noch einige Mitbringsel und machten uns dann auf zum Flughafen, den Mietwagen abholen... Sixt hatte mir netterweise einen Kalendereintrag für mein Handy geschickt aber mit der falschen Zeit und ich hatte die Zeit auf meiner Reservierung nicht kontrolliert....wir kommen also völlig nichtsahnend zwei Stunden später als reserviert aber pünktlich laut Kalender total relaxt dort an und alle zehn Autovermietungen haben offen, nur Sixt nicht!!!! und per Telefon ist auch keiner zu erreichen. Ein Zettel informierte und, dass um vier jemand kom... read more