A lot has happened in my life lately and it's been a while since I've posted something new. Last weekend, I took a day trip to the city Lucca on Saturday, and then went to my first European soccer match or partito di calcio as you say in Italian. Then, this past Wednesday I went to San Gimignano on a field trip with my Presence of the Past class. Right now, we're examining the differences between renaissance and medieval architecture and art, so we went to San Gimignano because it's a perfectly preserved example of a medieval city. It even has several of its towers intact to this day: 14 to be precise. This is probably what San Gimignano is most famous for. Back in medieval days, families in cities such as San Gimignano built tall towers as symbols of their wealth, power, and sometimes even nobility. In its prime, there were 72 towers in San Gimignano, but war and aging has brought down most of them.
Above: The medieval outer wall still stands almost in its entirety in San Gimignano. Siena was once completely surrounded by a wall like San Gimignano, but parts of it have been torn down to accommodate traffic flow in & out of the city.
Above: One of the "porte" which allowed for entrance & exit from the city in medieval days & today. The tower in the background is the one that I got to climb.
An embellished ring which was used to tie up horses in earlier eras.
The Duomo of San Gimignano with two twin towers across the piazza from it. City hall is right next to the Duomo and city hall has a museum with several well-known frescos and the tallest tower in the town which I got to climb.
The view as I climbed one of the towers
A gelateria in the main square in San Gimignano has been voted the best gelato in the world. It was delicious!
A view of the beautiful landscape as we left San Gimignano. Stay tuned for more blog posts in the very near future; I've been really busy so I haven't had time to post recently, but I will soon!!
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