The last time we came to San Gimignano, a beautiful medieval village in the heart of Tuscany, we were in such a rush with the family rushing us and trying to do a million things in one day! We decided then that the village is definitely worth another trip. And this weekend was perfect.
We woke up late (a typical Deeb family Saturday!), and we lazily went to S.M.N. Stazione. We picked up il treno regionale ticket to Poggibonsi F.S. (5.10EUR/person) from the automatic ticket machine. These things are truly easy; apparently not for most people though, if you consider the guy in front of us took 8 full minutes to get his tickets!
Arriving at the Boggibonsi station, we picked up the bus to San Gimignano after a quick café at the station bar. The sights on the road up to the village (20 minutes in the bus) are simply amazing. The Chianti hills and vineyards, the scattered clouds, a few olive groves here and there, and the fields of sunflowers soon to be picked. All beautiful!
The village itself is pretty interesting. Pia’s camera (Nikon D90) was working overtime today
In her own words: “Anywhere you look there’s something to shoot!”
True! There is the wonderful scenery of the Tuscan hillside all below you and extending forever. There’s also the remaining towers of San Gimignano (most of the towers were destroyed over the years/during the world wars). The whole village is built with same stones as the towers, but in some places you can see different stone patterns/types in the same building! Italians!
Pia will post another blog later on with her own thoughts about the day. She will probably write about how she forced me to taste the wonderful gelato made by the “world champion” of ice cream makers! Or maybe about the tasty lunch we had in the park just outside the old city entrance.
We’re in the train going back to Firenze now. We picked up a couple of yogurts and resting our feet in the train. I should probably turn off the netbook and get some sleep before we arrive.
Le Cinque Terre are five beautiful towns situated on the Italian Riviera, in the Ligurian region of Italy. The five villages are: Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore.
These fives towns are famous for their beautiful landscapes that overlook the sea, their panoramic terraces and lack of visible modern development!
Cinque Terre products:
Pesto (Sauce made from basil leaves, garlic, salt, olive oil, pine nuts and pecorino cheese)
Anchovies of Monterosso
Focaccia (Bread topped with herbs)
Farinata (Bread made with chick-pea flour)
Sciachetrà (Sweet wine)
Grappa (Brandy made with the pomace left from winemaking)
Limoncello
Grapes
Olives
Here are some photos of the coast of the Italian Riviera as seen from the towns
The posts that will follow will be displaying photos for each of the towns.
This weekend was very special. We went on Friday afternoon to Cinque Terre in the Italian region of Liguria. The Cinque (five) Terre (lands) are indeed five beautiful towns (Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza & Monterosso) right on the Ligurian coast, all connected by multiple pedestrian paths through the mountains. The towns are also accessible by , train, buses and ferries.
The towns’ economy basically depend on fishing and tourism. Le Cinque Terre are also considered an important national park and a protected marine and land reserve.
Well, right after we arrived to Riomaggiore, the first of the five towns we learned first-hand how friendly everyone is around here… including the Ligurian cats!
You can see beautiful chubby cats everywhere, and they are not afraid of people. All seem to be well fed, well treated and they don’t mind the tourists. We’ve been away from our cat “The Boss” for a while now, and feeling home-sick just a little bit. My husband went to pet one of the cats sitting on side of the street minding its business, and the cat went all cuddly and nice, leaning to rub its chubby head on the back of his hand. It stayed there, and allowed me to pet it myself. Later that night we found another cat (in the next town) that did the same. And another one… well it was raining and the cat was sitting under a bench trying to hide from the sparse drops of rain. Still it welcomed our petting hands on its head, for a little while before it looked away (probably saying to itself: “tourists!”).
Well I decided to write this blog and post some of the pics we got for the Cinque Terre cats!
We did much more than pet cats here. Maybe that should go in another post!
I’ve been eating Spaghetti ala Bolognese for as long as I remember. Well, I thought I have anyway. After I got married though, I truly tasted the Bolognese sauce for the first time (as it should be) and it was even greater.
Well, today we wanted to go to Bologna to taste the real thing. We took a train from Rifredi train station (in Florence) at about 11:30am and got there shortly before 1PM. An easy ride, and we had some time to study what parts of the meetings we missed this week.
Arriving at the train station we did what we customary do as soon as we get to a new city: get the bus tickets. The lady at the tourist information office almost laughed at us, saying we should simply walk over to the center of the city. We got a free map from the information office and waited about 10 minutes for the bus that goes to the center anyway.
We spent a few minutes in the center near the Neptune fountain then quickly decided to go get some food!
We found a nice cozy place (Pietro’s Trattoria) we read (on some blog) it had good food. Pia had the Tagliatelle with Bolognese sauce, and I asked for some Large Raviolli. Well, the tagliatelle was good (as one would imagine), and the raviolli were indeed large, all three pieces! And the wine was simply great. I’ve been drinking Chianti and other Tuscan wines for a while, but this was truly wonderful. It’s a shame we didn’t get any with us, but I forgot to ask for it when we had to leave (some Dutch guy who was behind us struck a conversation with me right after after lunch).
After lunch we strolled around the center, saw the hordes of university students with weird dresses and gothic look filling the streets. It was truly disturbing!
Finally we went back to the center and waited for an hour or so for our train. We tried to find a bus back to the train station, but an old lady looked at us funny and explained (in Italian) that it’s about 500m away, only one bus stop anyway. Well, we walked over and took the train back.
A nice day all in all, I should have ordered the Spaghetti ala Bolognese myself. Maybe next time!
