Merchants and pilgrims on the road to Rome brought prosperity to San Gimignano in the Middle Ages. You can still see a few of the town’s medieval ‘skyscrapers,’ built as symbols of wealth, looking eerily modern. Photo courtesy of www.sangimignano.com
Dear International Living Reader,
After a local rooster’s raucous wake-up call, my husband and I stepped onto the balcony of our hotel room in Tuscany and into some of the most romantic scenery on the planet. In the distance, the Apennines’ snow-capped peaks provide an impressive backdrop for cypress trees and chestnut forests. Sheep rest in the shade of umbrella pines, and nets stretch languorously between gray-green olive trees, waiting to catch their fruit. Trees of lemon and orange–bittersweet and perfect for marmalade–add golden highlights to the lush greenery.
Days like this are perfect to spend walking the walls of the region’s medieval hill towns, of which San Gimignano is our favorite. Located in the hills of Chianti, 34 miles southwest of Florence, the town bears the name of a former bishop said to have saved the town from barbarian hordes. You can enter through a gate cut into 13th century walls, via Porta San Giovanni, but no cars are permitted inside the three sets of walls that circle and protect the town.
San Gimignano is affectionately known as "San Gimignano delle Belle Torri" (San Gimignano of the Beautiful Towers) or "Medieval Manhattan," because of its skyline of 13 preserved towers. Originally there were 72, erected as symbols of wealth and power by the patrician families who controlled this former free commune during the 12th and 13th centuries. Also used as shelters in times of danger and for defense during attacks between antagonistic families, the height and number of these ancient high-rises grew along with the competition between the families. Several of the surviving towers soar to an impressive 150 feet.
You can visit one of them, the 176-foot-high Torre Grossa at the Piazza del Duomo, in the Palazzo del Popolo (the People’s Palace). The view of San Gimignano and the surrounding countryside from far up on The Grossa is well worth the climb.
Elise Warner
For International Living
