Jennie's Journal: More of Tuscany

Friday 7^th September

Temperature 31° - very pleasant

We had a leisurely start and set off in the car to drive through Tuscany. We chose to stay away from the autostrada at least outbound. We pretty much had the roads to ourselves as we headed for San Gimignano. Although the guide books suggested that the mornings are usually crowded we were encouraged by the lack of traffic. When we arrived around 11am, there were cars and people everywhere but we found a park in a designated car park and proceeded to wind out way on foot to the top. This is a quaint little tourist spot steeped in history with all the chimneys. We paid to walk up the 260+ steps and were rewarded with good views over the Tuscany valley. As usual there was no shortage of eateries and shops – mainly leather and artwork by local artists. We had found a supermarket en route and had purchased a couple of bread rolls and salami, so on the roadside en route to Sienna, we had lunch from the boot of the car!

We arrived in Sienna and of course had no idea where we were. We parked the car and soon purchased a map of the area, surprisingly we weren’t too far away from the main tourist area- The Piazza Il Campo where we found a shell shaped piazza. Quite a few people relaxing, sitting ont eh hard concrete and we joined them too for a short while. From what we observed, Sienna is quite large city with high density housing in very ancient looking buildings – very similar to other areas that we’d previously visited i.e. Cortona. These places boast at least one Duoma , a few churches and museums. We walked around the area before heading back home via the quickest route (75kms).