We bandied the idea around months before leaving on the trip. San Gimignano. Walled town. Tower houses. Hilltop fortification. Medieval architecture. How could we possibly pass this up? We would already be in the neighborhood, sort of.
Getting from our AirBnb to San Gimignano would have been a real adventure. 15-minute walk to the train station from our lodging in Montecatini Terme. 32-mile or hour-and-a-quarter ride to the central depot in Florence. A second hour train ride from the depot to the station in Poggibonsi. And finally a 30-minute bus ride on either bus 130 or 133 (hopefully going in the right direction!) to San Gimignano. So roughly a 6-hour round-trip journey, give or take an hour or so in case the country was having one of its notorious train strikes.
It was like the travel gods had smiled down on us. While walking around on our second day in Florence, Bob had noticed a sign advertising a tour of Siena that also included a stop in San Gimignano. Talk about divine intervention! That night with the help of our wonderful AirBnb host, Nicola, who also happens to be a globetrotting biologist/botanist/naturalist, and his housemate, we booked a combo tour of Siena.
