Italian Road Trip #2 - Towers of San Gimignano (Part Two)

Hey, fellow Steemians!

In the previous post, we introduced you to San Gimignano, a small medieval town in the heart of Tuscany. If you want to hear more about it, read on!

After getting some much needed food and rest it was time for us to continue exploring the town. We strolled from Piazza della Cisterna to adjacent Piazza del Duomo. Named after the 12th century church, this square looks almost exactly the same as it did during the medieval times.

This square is surrounded by several towers. Back in the good ol’ dark ages, these towers were built by numerous rich merchants as a symbol of power and wealth. And the taller the tower, the wealthier the family. The families kept competing with each other by building towers that outmatch their rivals’. This went on until authorities put a restriction on tower height, forbidding them to be taller than Torre Rognosa (the clock tower) which is located right at Piazza del Duomo.

Another huge tower, even taller than Torre Rognosa is Torre Grossa (the great tower). This 54 meters tall building is the largest structure in San Gimignano and offers spectacular views of the town and Tuscan countryside. Being already in love with San Gimignano, we decided it would make for a great highlight of our visit to climb to the top of the tower and see this town from a different perspective.

Single ticket costs €9, which seems a bit pricey but if you consider the fact that you also get a free entry to a couple of museums (including Archaeological museum) in San Gimignano, you get your money’s worth. We didn’t have time to visit the museums, but if you happen to find yourself in San Gimignano for a whole day you’ll have enough time to pay them a visit.

To get to the tower entrance, we passed through a courtyard of Palazzo Comunale (Municipal Palace). This palace served as headquarters for the town authority from the 13th century, all the way to the present day. The tower itself doesn’t take long to climb. While we clambered upstairs, we were surprised to see a long vertical banner hanging from the ceiling with a projected animation of town’s history on it. The short film was very fun and educational. We actually found out that the famous poet, Dante Alighieri, visited this town back in the day! After a short break, we continued and soon enough we reached the top.

And here we are! Needless to say, the view is breathtaking. You can see every part of San Gimignano, as well as endless Tuscan countryside. We spent more time here than we initially planned but we didn’t regret any second of it.

Time had come to hit the road and continue our Tuscan road trip. San Gimignano was everything we expected it to be (and more), making it hard to just let it go so easily. But we broke our schedule already and we knew that our next destinations would not disappoint us either.

Join us in the next post as we continue our journey through Italy!

See you soon, fellow Steemians!

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