Day 7 San Gimignano, Monteriggioni, Siena & Peinza

View down from San Gimignano
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We waved goodbye to Florence to discover 5 new cities. San Gimignano was the first stop. It had a huge fortified towers that were built as residence to protect one another from domestic wars. Our tour was beautiful in the picturesque town. I wrote my parents a postcard and mailed it in the most adorable local post office. Isabelle and I sketched the buildings surrounding the square and somehow missed the rest of our group at the meeting time. We were about an hour late to the bus.. oops!

Monteriggioni was the second stop of the day. It was another city with a nice fortiification system and it also had a free restroom. Siena was the longest stop of the day. Jacek showed us the Piazza del Campo. For some reason the plan is symbol for the school of Architecture at UT. The Catherdral was beautiful. It had alternating black and white interiors. In the 13c the government wanted to create the largest catherdral in the world so they began construction on additions. A plague swept through the area and wiped out the majority of the towns people. There was no longer anyone to work on the project so it was forgotten. Now you can see the pieces of construction and its very interesting how the uncompleted pieces tell the history of the city. We had pizza and ice cream for lunch. I sketched a bit and watched families in the square. Pienza is very small and had a nice palace and town hall. We went inside the courtyard of the palace and had a wonderful view of the italian countryside. It was spectacular – more beautiful than any Tuscan postcard I’ve ever seen!