Day 7- Day Trip Part 2- San Gimignano and Pisa

Our next top on our day trip was to the hilltop town of San Gimignano. This town is tough enough for an English speaker to pronounce sober, so in our tipsy state we quickly gave up and called it “San Quibbus” for the rest of the trip. Not sure where it came from, but it was funny at the time and it stuck. The term “hilltop town” is extremely literal, and we had to do quite a bit of climbing to get to the main part of town, which, like most towns, included a main street with lots of shops, leading up to a square and a church. Once we reached the top, we saw quite the view:



We stopped and got gelato at our guide Stefano’s uncle’s shop. This was one of my favorite gelatos of the whole trip. They had really interesting flavors at this place. I ended up mixing 3: grapefruit champagne, raspberry rosemary, and blackberry lavender. They were all really interesting and delicious.

Here are the steps in the square where we sat and ate our gelato:


Here is Ilya with his gelato in his favorite flavor: chocolate!


Here I am wandering about the town:


I think we also went into a cafe and got a hot chocolate so we could use their bathroom. Here is a picture that shows just how steep this town was:


We ducked off on a side street and found an overlook with a really nice view of the countryside and saw a kitty. After our short visit to San Quibbus, we made it back to the bus to head over to Pisa. This was a bit of a long drive, and as the wine wore off, everyone was pretty sleepy. It was a struggle to stay awake, but the scenery outside the bus was too good to miss. It was just endless rolling hills. Once we arrived in Pisa, Stefano got very excited because we were going to ride a “choo-choo train” into the main area of Pisa, and it is one of his favorite parts of the day. It was this little dinky...car type thing with a few “train cars” attached, and it drove us around on the streets. It even said “Tchoo-Tchoo Train” on it, and Stefano sat in the front and yelled choo choo into the microphone and we all giggled. Once we got to where all the action was, Stefano showed us around and gave us a little tutorial on how to take the best picture of yourself holding up the tower:



Oh Stefano!

Here are our best attempts:




And here is the scene where tons of people gather to get the same shot:


It is quite leany!



Lots of people opt to climb the tower. Not us! We wandered around a bit through the town. There was a public garden but it was closed for All Saints Day. To be honest, Pisa was a bit boring. I am glad we got to go and take pictures and see the tower, but that’s about all there is to do there, so I’m glad we didn’t spend any more time there than we did.


We played around and tried to get some pictures of Ilya mid-jump, with varying degrees of success:




On the ride back to Florence, the Texan honeymooners sitting in front of us overheard us trying to figure out where to eat dinner. They turned around and recommended a place they had already eaten at twice, called Ciro and Sons. We decided to give it a try, and we headed over once we got off the bus. We got a little lost on the way but actually ran into the same couple who had just left the place -- they stopped by a third time to buy a bottle of the house wine to take home and drink on their first wedding anniversary -- and they pointed us in the right direction. We sat outside and enjoyed a nice meal. Of course, we shared a bottle of house wine that was so highly recommended to us. I got the tomato soup to start:


and I finally got to have pesto pasta as my entree:


That’s nutmeg around the rim of the plate. My second nutmeg-laced meal. Ilya got some wacky seafood pizza:


After this we did our usual walking around. I am sure we got gelato before heading back to our hotel to call it a night after our favorite day of the trip.