What a beautiful day we woke up to. Ate, packed the bike and when we finally showed ourselves in front of our hosts home, they came out to say their goodbyes. I guess the language barrier prevented them from being more social with us. They even suggested we stayed longer, but we were satisfied with what we had seen in Sienna and wanted to move on. We were thankful for an opportunity to have our independence anyway, providing a bed, kitchen, pots and pans, towels, etc. (even though we have our own).
We set off for San Gimignano. The ride was great. We had an unexpected treat en route. On the map, we saw a place called Monteriggioni as a place of interest. From afar, it looked like nothing more than an abandoned medieval fort. But we decided to take a peek, and were surprised to find that it had a tiny city inside of it that was quite charming, with wine tasting, a hotel, restaurants. We did a walk along the city walls and talked with some other bikers there, and of course, tasted some wine. We would definitely recommend this as a place to stay on any bike trip, as it is away from the maddening crowd, yet had all the amenities, including an internet cafe.
San Gimignano turned out to be one of our top favorite hill towns in Tuscany. The book describes it appropriately, in that it looks like you are entering Manhatten (it now has 12 standing towers, and once had 72 of them). In the summer, it also said you would feel like half of Manhatten had moved in, as it is a popular tourist place. We found a stunning campground and campsite, down a steep hill, that gave us a great view of the SG. We unloaded our stuff and headed into town. It was a delight to go in on such a light bike. After tooting around, we had a wonderful Tuscan meal and then went to the central plaza where some German students were playing outstanding classical music. An end to a perfect day!
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