More medieval towns

Tuesday, 26 June

Today we visited two more towns.  We are enjoying just being at our apartment, we’ve been spending more time doing that.  The children have been enjoying swimming--thank goodness for their big sister lifeguard, Annie.  Randy and I have been enjoying reading and napping and looking out the windows at the beautiful scenery.  The woman that owns our place said that she didn’t put anything up on the walls because what could compete with what was right outside the windows?  Those scenes were better than any painting she could come up with.  And she was right.  

A view from our apartment

First we went to San Gimignano.  Annie observed that it is pronounced very much like Jimmy John’s.  It was very much like the other towns, but seemed to be full of tourist shops.  It also is  full of towers.  Back in medieval times, there wasn’t a lot of protection for families.  Families with money would build towers to live in to protect themselves from marauders.  San Gimignano is charming with nice squares, small little churches everywhere, tall, old buildings clustered along labyrinths of streets (that cars actually try to drive on).  It was very cute and kind of what you expect a medieval town to look like, but very touristy.    

Then we went to Volterra.  Since it is the town that is the setting for the Twilight books, we expected some Twilight hype.  But we were pleasantly surprised and only saw a few t-shirts in one shop.  The scenes for the movies were shot in a nearby town, so maybe that is the reason for the non-existent hype.  As you walk up to the older part of the village on the hill, you see what looks like a castle wall and tower--nope, that’s the prison!  Volterra is more of a town that people live in and is thus less cute than San Gimignano.  It still has some squares and old buildings and the photo of a building with the person’s head carved into it was rather whimsical!

See the little guy at the top of the photo?

All of the towns and farms in Tuscany are built on hilltops, probably for protection purposes and because it is so hilly, all of the crops are on the hillsides.  Then, they have these trees--creepy, Italian trees (Under the Tuscan Sun reference), that are tall and thin and coniferous.   I prefer my shade and fruit trees!  Joshua really likes them though.   Many homes line their long driveways with them and use them in their landscaping.  We have some in our little encampment too.  I’ll try for a photo tomorrow.  We are having to upload several days at a time since we don’t have wi-fi here.  Randy made the observation that we haven’t watched TV since we’ve been on vacation and don’t really miss it, but we do miss wi-fi.  I haven’t checked my email or Facebook in ages!