San Gimignano- August 11: The Magic of San Gimignano

The hotel L'Antico Pozzo has a buffet breakfast that you can eat either inside or outside in their pleasant walled in courtyard. After eating, we walked along the winding streets to the Civic Museum and tower. Many of the sacred pictures were painted as if the scenes took place right here in San Gimignano. This helped the people feel more connected. There's only one tower in town you can climb and we went up it. The stairs are wide and modern. At the top the views are spectacular. Only a large crane spoils the medieval ambiance. This is the most unusual town I have ever seen with 14 towers from the 1300's still intact. Lunch was again at Ocanda Di San Agostino in the courtyard of the church. The paninis here are either served cold or open face if hot. They also serve an excellent mozarella and tomato salad.

In town, we saw an interesting water color exhibition. Two people on a pilgrimage recently went from Santiago de Compestela in Spain to Rome. They both painted each church they saw and they were displayed side by side with their journal. Later we had our own cheese and wine party on the terrace of the hotel. As a bear I didn't think I would like goat cheese so I was amazed to find out that it was actually goat cheese I was enjoying so much with my rosemary crackers.

Tonight we strolled around town and it is bustling with tourists. We had Pigliapizza and gelati, two of my real favorites. We are about to climb up to the terrace of the old fort to watch the sunset. It will be the end to a perfect day.

"San Gimignano"

Old stone towers
Reaching for the sky in a
town like no other.