MacsTravel Blog

Over the course of our week long stay at our villa in Tuscany we had plans to visit a few hill towns as a group. First up on the list was the hill town of San Gimignano. For Robin and me, this was our first visit to this spot even though we had seen the town’s 14 towers rising in the Tuscan hills on previous visits to this area.

Ian had arranged a small group tour with the personable and knowledgeable Fernanda, who would also lead us through our visit to Siena later in the week. She took us on a well planned route through the town, sharing lots of details about the history of San Gimignano as the unwilling step child of Siena or Florence over the years.

San Gimignano’s 14 towers are all that remain from the 72 towers that at one time graced the skyline, but they offer the most visible reminder of what many Tuscan towns once looked like. Towers were common in many Tuscan towns as we had already seen in Lucca, and were built as housing (they offered protection in a violent time) and to convey status (the higher the better).

The old centre of San Gimignano is encircled by a stone medieval wall, and roughly 1000 people still live within its walls. It is a huge tourist draw, and shops and restaurants within the walls are aimed at that market. We definitely noticed that things quieted down later in the afternoon as the bus tours wrapped up, but it still felt a bit more like a tourist site than a community.

 Piazza della Cisterna is one of the more notable squares, located near the height of the town. It is surrounded by medieval buildings and features and old cistern in the centre, its edges deeply notched by the repeated hauling of water up by the bucketload over the centuries.

It also features a long line of people extending from the middle of the square to the tiny gelateria which was proclaimed the best in the world in 2024. The line goes very quickly and is certainly worth it: the gelato is excellent, as Pete, our resident gelato enthusiast can attest.

Tucked up around the corner is another piazza, this one named after the Duomo di San Gimignano. Quite ordinary on the outside the interior is quite extraordinary, lined as it is by medieval frescoes which are in very good condition.

One of the best things to do in San Gimignano is to get off the busy central street and explore the streets which snake outwards and along the city walls.

You get great views back up into town and out into the countryside.

We very much enjoyed our tour and would certainly recommend a visit to this impressive tower town.