San Gimignano…FINALLY!!

So, this weekend was the grossest weather ever! And unfortunately, this weather has carried over into this week. It’s rainy and COLD, and I wish it would just snow. It really wants to, and it is snowing everywhere but Florence. But anyways, on Friday, despite the bad weather we went to Siena, a small Tuscan medieval town. It’s one of the best preserved medieval towns in the area. It was pretty cool to see all the old stone buildings with giant towers and fortresses. However, at the same time, it’s cool because the rest of the town, the more modern buildings have just sprung up around the ancient buildings, so it’s a very interesting mixture of medieval and modern. It was pouring down rain unfortunately, because from many places in the town you can look out into the Tuscan countryside, which is beautiful, even in the rain. I got sick, yet again, because it was so cold and rainy, so now I have a gross cold. Bummer. But, I have been wanting to see Siena for a while now. It’s so close to Florence, it’s one of those towns I would have been disappointed if I hadn’t gotten to see it before I left. And, since that night was one of the last nights Christy’s friends were in town, we went to fabulous restaurant across the river called Cambi and all the boys had giant Fiorentina steaks, which were amazing. They cook them for a short time on either side and then they stand the steak up on it’s bone and let the heat of the bone cook the inside. It’s pretty interesting, just to watch.
Finally on Sunday I got my second chance to tackle San Gimignano. Some of you may have read my post about trying to get there before, and if you haven’t, you probably should, because it’s quite comical and gives a little more insight as to why this trip was equally as ridiculous… Anyways, this trip was equally as disastrous, except this time we actually made it the town we wanted to see. So, we start off the day getting to the train station late, but it didn’t matter because our train ended up being 40 minutes late. You have to love the Italian trains. Actually, I really do love being able to travel by train, but the Italians can’t organize anything! Anyways, once we finally get on the train and get to Poggibonsi, we actually know what to do to get to San Gimignano this time, but since our train was late, we missed our bus and ended up having an hour and half wait in Poggibonsi. So, once again we found ourselves wasting time in this tiny town where everything is always closed! But, the bus finally came, so we get on it, with three other people and we haven’t even gone three blocks before a car hits our bus!! We barely even felt it because were in a huge charter bus thing, but this little Italian car felt it!! It really wasn’t bad, but there was a ton of paperwork to do, of course. So, that delays us even further. And, I would like to point out that these things would never happen to anyone but Christy and me!! But, we FINALLY get to San Gimignano, and it is worth all the fuss and trouble and wait to get there. This is probably one of my top favorite places in Italy now! It’s a tiny (we’re talking TINY) town on top of a hill that is still surrounded by its original medieval walls, and something like eight of the original medieval towers still exist. It was so cool to walk through this town and around this town and all over it because it’s so small… But it was like stepping in a time machine because every part of this town is original and it hasn’t grown outside of it’s original walls (atleast not much). So, as we are wandering around we find signs for La Casa de Babo Natale (Santa’s House). And, of course, we have to go in. So, we enter this courtyard and it’s decorated with lights in the trees and Christmas-y things everywhere, including a sleight and wooden reindeer. And then, Babo Natale’s house was in the corner and it turns out it was like an arts-n-crafts hut for children, so we thought we would leave it to the children, but it was fun to see. Plus, we found a tower in this courtyard that you could climb up and get the best 360º view of the city ever! Christy and I just sat up there in awe of the beauty of the scenery. I could have stayed there forever and been content. You could see Tuscan countryside for miles: miles of wine country and olive groves and the bright oranges and reds and greens that are made! It was really cool. So, despite the fact that Christy and I almost never actually made it San Gimignano, it was definitely worth the hassle!!