Day 45 - Sienna, San Gimignano and Pisa

Worlds Oldest Bank

Another early start this morning as we are going on another bus tour.  The tour is called "The best of Tuscany" and takes us around the Tuscan countryside.  We were at the bus station at 8:15.  This was only a 5 minute walk away from our B & B so it was not too bad.  First stop was Sienna, a classic medieval town.  The town is set on top of a hill (luckily we were able to catch 5 escalators up) and still has its medieval town wall.  There is almost no traffic in the town, and all the building are still original from approximately 700 years ago.  

Sienna is famous for the Piazza Del Campo, one of the most beautiful town squares in the world.  This is where they hold the horse race know as IIl Palio every year, where horses run around the square three times in a crazy and chaotic race with very few rules. Siena is also famous for having the worlds oldest working bank, with the banking system having started only a few miles away in Florence (Hence the Florin coin!). There is also a beautiful church adorned with masterpieces from Michelangelo and other renaissance artists.  We were also lucky in that there is a marble mosaic floor which has been covered to preserve it for many years, and it was uncovered two days ago.

After Sienna, we headed to a farm in the Tuscan countryside for Lunch.  The farm is organic and they grow chickens, cows, rabbits, pigs, as well as grapes, olive oil, wheat and honey. Nearly everything we had for lunch was grown on the farm, including home-made spagetti with meat sauce, salami, prosciutto, lettuce, tomatoes and 4 different kinds of wine!  Lunch was bellissimo, and the view of the Tuscan country side from the restaurant was spectacular.

After lunch we headed for a small town called San Gimignano.  This town is famous for having a series of towers, which were houses during the medieval times.  The towers had no front doors. - People would enter by a ladder to the first floor which would then be pulled up afterwards.  This was for security and to keep unwanted neighbours away.  There must have been a lot of unwanted neighbours because originally the town had over 70 tower-houses like this.  Today on 17 remain, but they are still specular amid the rest of the other buildings.

Finally we made our way to Pisa.  The leaning tower is still there and is still leaning.  The tower is now open to vistors to climb, but unfortunately was booked out until 1 hour after we were due to leave.  Never mind, next time.  We amused ourselves by taking silly photos of the boys "holding up" the tower, or "pushing" the tower over.  The tower leans because it has no proper foundation, and actually started leaning from the time the 3rd storey was built.  If you look closely, you can see that the upper stories are actually higher on one side that the other, where the original builders tried to "correct" the lean.  This give the tower a slightly curved appearance.  Soon after we were back on the bus for the drive back to Florence.  We were glad to be back on the bus after a long hot (38 degree) day. Ahhhhh, air-conditioning!