March 17, 2023 - San Gimignano

We were up early this morning to take an early bus to San Gimignano. It was the same bus we had taken to Siena except we had to stop in Poggibonsi. For the first time since we have been here, our tickets were checked. When we descended the bus in Poggibonsi, two ticket inspectors were there to check if we had tickets and if they had been validated on the machine on the bus. A young couple from Poland did not have their tickets validated and they were handed a fine that they paid there and then had to go buy another set of tickets. I felt sorry for them because I don’t think they did it on purpose. They had gotten off on a different bus and transferred to ours at the beginning of the route. I think their bus driver must have contacted ours because our bus just stopped adjacent to the other bus in the middle lane and opened the door for them. It will be a memorable visit for them. We talked a bit with them in San Gimignano, but their English was very basic.

The town is nice, it is of course a hilltop town with narrow alleys crisscrossing throughout the town. There were as many tourists as citizens. It only has about 20,000 inhabitants. When you enter the town through the first archway all you see are little shops selling all sorts of tourist stuff, tee shirts, pasta, spices, wine, salamis, ceramics as well as ornaments, magnets etc. but once you get passed that and enter the squares and side alleys it gets more authentic. It is a walled city like Lucca but on a smaller scale and all the buildings were all made of stone. There are 14 towers that are still standing in San Gimignano. Their Duomo looked very ordinary from the outside but the inside seemed to be filled with frescoes from what we could see. We had lunch outside in the piazza in front of the Duomo. We had a prime spot. It was fun people watching while having lunch.

Of course, there were a few caches to do which basically took us to all the places that we needed to see. We even followed a path on the outside of the town for a while. This gave us some beautiful vistas of the Tuscan landscape. You could see the vineyards and olives plantations all around the town slopes.

It took us a while to figure the time for a bus for Poggibonsi and where to get on. The bus stop to go back is not where they drop you off. The schedule on the board is not at all correct. Sometimes the board will say it is in half an hour and 2 minutes later the bus is there. When our bus number arrived, I asked the driver if he was stopping in Poggibonsi. He showed me on the board that the bus I should take was in 2 hours but the sign on the bus showed that he was going there. A lady also told us that it was to Poggibonsi, so I asked again and this time he said yes. Communication is not great. But it was the right bus, and we made our connection with no problems.

We again ate outdoors for supper. Since we didn’t have any supplies to make supper we opted to eat out. The line up for the restaurant was long which is a good sign. There were lots of tables outside, so it wasn’t a problem getting a place. But for those that arrived at opening time they had to wait for the early birds to finish before they could get a table. Nothing wrong in having lunch and dinner outside on the same day in March.

The entrance to the town.

A chocolate fountain.

Not the prettiest animal but ever so tasty.

There are still people living here.

Must be beautiful in the summer when everything is green.

A model of the old town.

Pici Pasta. Pici looks like very fat spaghetti.

Two meals outside in one day in March. We had this restaurant on our list since we arrived but only made it today. We made the mistake of ordering an appetizer since the main course is huge. It was so big that Jacques only got halfway through his plate.