San Gimignano – the famous medieval city of gender towers. Mentioned and recommended in every Tuscany travel guide. Visited by millions of tourists every year.

San Gimignano

Tuscany is full of small medieval towns that allow us, especially those living in big modern cities, to do a time travel few hundred years back into Medieval and Renaissance Europe. When huge walls, fortresses and watch towers were needed to protect the citizens against the neighbouring towns. When alleys followed the geography of the hill the town was built on. When privacy and hygiene were unknown.

San Gimignano is the only town in Tuscany with many gender towers still standing, the tallest one, Torre Grossa, can still be climbed. These gender towers had no purpose but to show off – human vanity is not a modern time invention! San Gimignano is crowded during the day between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. But early and late in the day, when the majority of tourists haven’t arrived or have left, you can actually see locals having Italian breakfast at the bar, which is just cafe and briosce. Yes, that is less than what British/Americans call continental breakfast! That should explain why the Italian language has no word reserved for ‘breakfast’ other than ‘first lunch’ (prima colazione).

This year I was lucky to find a great appartment to stay for a week. It was right in the middle between Piazza Duomo and Piazza della Cisterna. Fabio, the friendly host, was giving some good advice about things to do and those to avoid. Of course, in medieval downtown you don’t have the tranquility of a rural farm house, but you can enjoy Italian lifestyle: getting the world’s best ice cream on Piazza della Cisterna without having to stand in line. Getting the best and freshest briosce before they are sold out at 8 a.m. Climbing Torre Grossa before the bulk of tourists arrive and, last but not least, taking photographs without tourists. Enjoying wonderful Tuscan cuisine in one of the plenty outdoor restaurants or cafes. San Gimignano is also a good base for exploring Siena, Pisa and Florence provinces. Distances to Volterra, Florence, Siena, Monteriggioni and Montepulciano are all well below 100 km.

One more thing I should mention: just in case you have finished your Italian course and you’re wondering why you don’t understand a word Tuscans are saying. Florence claims to speak the ‘official Italian Language’, I guess that’s mainly owed to the famous Florentine author Dante Alighieri who wrote ‘The Divine Comedy’ in the early 14th century. He was the first to write in people’s language Italian instead of power’s language Latin. (Similar to what Martin Luther did two hundred years later by translating the Bible into German language.) Very much in contradiction to this fact, todays Tuscan Italians refuse to pronounce the important consonant ‘k’ which is ‘ch’ in Italian. Wherever there is a ‘ch’, they just pronounce an almost silent ‘h’. But who knows, maybe Dante was doing the same. It’s a bit like visiting Bavaria after a German language course. Be prepared for frustration.