San Gimignano and Siena

I have great intentions (cough, cough). When I get home I hope to “Start” and actually finish a scrapbook of the trip. If I blog the details each day, I will be able to use the blog to scrapbook the trip. If I don’t write them down – I will never remember them all.

We left the Villa (we are staying at the Borgo di Cortefreda) at 9:00 am and headed to San Gimignano. We lucked out with weather. It rained all last week and the sun is shining for us this week. Luckily the tour buses hadn’t arrived and the town was pretty quiet until we started to leave.

Here are some pics of some of the group, views and awes.

After San Gimignano we headed for lunch at Agriturismo Il Castagnolino. www.agriturismoilcastagnolino.com This is first – a working farm and then a guest house. The owners gave us a tour of their herb farm and grounds and then we sat down outside to a sampling of home made foods. Everything was home made and they used the herbs from the garden. Even the Gelato and Olive Oil was home made. The flavour of everything was so pure – my taste buds have come alive. And yes folks… wine was involved.

Here are some pics of the lunch (literally) and views. This first picture is the view from their property. Wow… I couldn’t imagine waking up to that every morning.

See… I told you – I literally took pictures of the food.

This is where we ate – amazing!

And our hosts.

After lunch we headed to Siena for a guided walking tour of the town. We lucked out – only once a year the floors of the Duomo are uncovered for 6 weeks. We were able to see all the inlay work. It truly is beautiful. I had taken a video of the inside of the Duomo. Unfortunately the internet connection is very slow and I didn’t want to take the chance to upload the video.

Here is a picture of the Square in Siena.