Pisa & San Gimigiano

Sunday, we got up and drove straight to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It really does lean, and a lot more than we had expected, it was pretty impressive. Something I didn't know is that the tower is actually a bell tower for the big cathedral right next to it. So, we also walked around the exterior of the cathedral and the baptistery, walked up the streets for a few minutes, then got back in the car. We'd had multiple people tell us Pisa doesn't have much to offer aside from the tower so we decided not to waste our time there.

We had to take our obligatory tourist picture in Pisa, but this meme is all too accurate for what everyone looks like there! Hahaha

Once we'd left Pisa we drove about an hour to a town called San Gimigiano. The town is an old medieval town with a big stone wall and watch towers surrounding it. We had to park outside the city walls because this was another city where the streets are only for local traffic. That worked fine for us because the streets were narrow and I'm pretty sure our "station wagon" (by Italian standards) never would've fit. The town has essentially been preserved in its original state so it just felt really authentically old and medieval. The town also sits atop a hill where we had great views of the Tuscan countryside. For lunch we had some really yummy bruschettas from a tiny little corner shop where one lady worked as waitress, bus boy, cook, and cashier. It was certainly one of our best meals in Italy!  It’s another one we dream of now that we're not there. After several hours wandering around the city, we drove to Siena where our hotel turned out to be a Best Western. 

San Gimigiano is called Tuscany's Manhattan because of the towers

For dinner, we decided to treat ourselves.  After all we'd been eating all those PB&J sandwiches and individual €1 slices of pizza everyday to save money for real Italian food, and Tuscany is the place for that! So, we got on TripAdvisor and found one of their top ranked places in Siena, pulled and the GPS and found the little place called Zest. At first, we thought it was closed because we couldn't see anybody in there and it's mostly lit by candles so it was pretty dark. But we walked in, had a really friendly (London born, English speaking) waiter. We went full out on this meal, and got an appetizer, which was a leek, caramelised onion and Gorgonzola tart. For our main courses, Spencer got homemade noodles with a tomato basil sauce and I had stuffed chicken with garlic mashed potatoes. We finished it off with a lemon tiramisu, which was also really yummy. Plus they kept bringing us fresh bread to dip in oil and vinegar. The crazy part is we paid less for that whole meal than we did for two crappy plates of pasta with 2 cans of coca cola in Venice on Christmas Eve!