Day Trip in Tuscany

FLORENCE: Yesterday was my excursion day. For about two weeks now I've been tossing up between visiting Lucca, north west of the city, or Siena and San Gimignano to the south. I've tried all the usual channels but I still couldn't make up my mind. In the end I left it to fate. Whichever train came first I'd take. In the end the train to Siena was leaving an hour and a half earlier so there was no contest.

San Gimignano isn't on any train lines and to get there you have to get off the Siena train at a small industrial town called Poggibonsi and then take a bus. From there it's a local bus through the Tuscan countryside. Unfortunately I'd just missed the bus, so I was condemned to a lazy hour reading the paper, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. There are worse ways of passing the time.

When the bus finally did arrive, all the passengers got on, the locals moved towards their seats and myself and American couple asked the bus driver for tickets. He told us we needed to go into the shop at the station so in a panic we jumped off the bus, our bags still on board, and bolted to the kiosk for tickets.

San Gimignano enjoys part of its reputation from the twelve tours the fill the city. Perched on a hilltop, it makes for a stunning sight when first glimpsed in the distance as you round a corner. Arriving at the town my first priority was a tourist information desk and a bus timetable so I could plan my escape. With that accomplished I was free to wander the town, refreshing myself with more coffee and pizza. (Did I do anything else in Italy other than eat or drink?)

I walked the town walls, explored the remains of a fort at the top of the hill, craned my neck upwards to observe the towers, wandered up and down forgotten little backstreets and watched the crowds milling around the cafes and the fountain in the piazza. After lunch I waited for them to open a museum that contained some lovely Etruscan art and then climbed a tower for what, I was later told, was the most wonderful view of Tuscany. And then, as the rain pissed down upon me, it was time to leave. I was grateful for the rain actually. It rained when I left Florence, stopped for most of the morning, and then rained briefly, though heavily, as I left. However the weather probably did much to keep the crowds away. After all the town enjoys a reputation as the most visited small town in Italy.

After a bus back to Poggibonsi it was another wait on a train station platform for the onward journey to Siena. I met a fellow tourist, a photographer from Brazil, who had been travelling on her own for six months so we swapped stories on the train and then wandered around Siena. The town itself isn't as impressive as it's smaller cousin. Like Florence the influx of tourism has left quite a stain on the place, something I was surprised wasn't repeated in Rome. We checked out the Duomo, just the outside - it was closing when we got there, the Campo, and its steep winding streets. It is a nice place, it just doesn't have the natural beauty or the relaxed vibe of San Gimignano and even though the smaller town is probably more kitschy it absorbs it better. In a way I wish I'd visited Lucca but then I might have been disappointed there and there wouldn't have been a side trip like SG.

Then it was time for a bus back to the train station, a train back to Florence and another carafe of wine accomplished by a bowl of spaghetti carbonara. Bellissimo!