San Gimignano

Today my Art and Architecture class took the 1pm bus to San Gimignano. After a very bumpy, twisty drive, we were all ready to get out and explore the town once we arrived around 2:30. PG (our professor) gave us a tour of all of the important sites and artwork. San Gimignano is a medieval town in Tuscany with gorgeous views of the countryside because it is on a hill. We toured its cathedral, which has colorful frescoes decorating the entire walls and ceiling inside. One side displays Old Testament stories and the other New Testament ones. These were particularly interesting because the Old Testament paintings were completed later, but they look less realistic because after the Black Death the Sienese art masters all died. Therefore, artists reverted back to Byzantine styles without 3-D illusion. Also in the cathedral was a painting calling “Annunciation.” However, it took us forever to understand what the actual name of the painting was (and we needed to know because it’ll be on our test) because PG pronounced it “on-un-CHAY-shun”! We also toured the tower of San Gimignano, which had a lot of steps to climb to the top. It was worth the effort though because the views outside were incredible, overlooking the entire city and the countryside for miles. We ended the tour in the tower and our next stop was gelato, of course. It is apparently a famous gelato place (like all of the gelaterias in Italy!), but with the warm temperatures and sun, it did taste great. We then had thirty-ish minutes to explore some more or shop around before getting the bus back at 6:40pm. San Gimignano, though beautiful, is also very touristy, so there are a lot of stores lining the stone streets and medieval architecture. After returning to Siena at 8, Stella of course had a wonderful meal waiting for Ana Rose and I. Not only did our pasta course include the gnocchi leftovers from my cooking lesson yesterday, but she also made panzanella, bread salad (basically, day old bread that has been soaked in water until it absorbs it all, combined with tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, and onions). It’s a very summery salad and went well with the lemon, oregano, breaded chicken that we had for our meat course. She also made us steamed fennel, carrots, potatoes, and onions – all with garlic, olive oil, fresh bread, and wine as usual. Stella certainly takes good care of us! Lastly, all of the girls got together and planned out our travels to Cinque Terre this weekend, so I am going to bed since we are getting up at 7:30am tomorrow to catch the first train out!