san gimignano was our first stop on monday. it is an old medieval town that is really neat. it is pretty touristy, but has a lot of cool things to see. there's the local church, some special gelato, and a torture museum. yup, they've got everything related to torture that you could think of, including electric chairs. we didn't go in though, thank god. the outside was enough for me. but san gimignano is known for it's towers, 13 towers to be exact, so you can definitely recognize this city from a distance. beware of the hills.
walking up to san gimignano
entrance to the town
torture museum
coco and heather enjoying san gimignano
i thought this grape artwork was cool
the beautiful church
evan, remember when you got kicked out?
interior design
cinzia!
my friends buying gelato. surprise.
piiiigs
tuscany
pinocchio park
coco and heather on the bus
cloooouds
the best
next up: wine tasting. this place was really interesting. everything is organic and the wine was really good! our server was hilarious, trying to crack jokes in his broken english. he definitely asked me if i had black eyes (correction: i have blue eyes), and then went on to explain that there are black eyes because flies get in them... what? i still don't know. but i had a great time!
the organic vineyard
wine tasting!
coco and i smelling the wine like they taught us
that's san gimignano in the distance!
i love tuscany
the group with our server from the wine tasting
he said 1,2,3... 2pac!
last stop was volterra. i regret to inform all of you that new moon was NOT filmed here. i know, disappointed table for one? apparently stephanie meyers chose volterra as the setting for the vampires in the book (volterra, vampires, it makes sense...), but the movie producers probably didn't think it was the "look" they wanted... so new moon was actually filmed in a different town, but they still called it volterra.
i wouldn't really recommend volterra. sorry, but i didn't find it crazy interesting. the alabaster production is definitely cool, but the town is very small that not too great. we saw an ancient roman theatre that was interesting though. but if you are a die-hard twilight fan, they offer a new moon tour where they take you to the places highlighted in the book! so do that if you go there.
all of us walking down to learn about the arch
etruscan arch
amphitheatre in volterra
the alabaster workshop
dog!!
such detail
new moon!
fakers.
these really cool ceramics built in to the walls
we got to siena in time for dinner where we got free heart-shaped potatoes. yummmm
our fried potatoes from the guys who loved us at dinner
we're finally in florence!! more to come later....
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