... olive groves, vineyards, pencil pines, and backyard pizza ovens.
On the way to our place in San Gimignano we passed through the village of Colle di Val d'Elsa with its medieval centre on the top of the hill.
Our place in San Gimignano was superb and the hosts Ugo and Rosanna were even better. On arrival they gave us a chilled bottle of the local Vernaccia wine which was delicious and offered us anything we liked from their vast fruit, vege and herb garden - took Ugo 2 days to water it!
We'd noted that some places don't have drying racks on the sink - so where do you put your dishes after you've washed them?
Voila, there's a freakin drying rack in a bottomless cupboard directly above the sink! Italian ingenuity at its best.
A short drive from San Gimi is the city of Siena with its enchanting medieval UNESCO world heritage site, the historic centre.
We fluked the one day of the year when they hold a major event - a bareback horse race around the Piazza del Campo which is in the historic centre. They put clay around the edge to make the track, pack the centre area and the edges with as many people as they can. Then comes the arduous task of trying to line up all the fiesty horses behind a piece of rope - this year it took around 30mins with a couple of false starts, one where one horse was facing the wrong way. Quite entertaining. The race itself is based on time rather than a number of laps. It runs for exactly 3 minutes and whoever is in front at that time gets the chocolates.
This is the morning after...
Also within the Siena historic centre is the extremely stunning Romanesque and Gothic Duomo (Cathedral). We thought the one in Florence was impressive!! This one craps all over it!
This looks great. Good old Italians
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