Duration: 15 Days 15 Nights (Sep 02~Sep 17, 2014)
Day 8: Siena, San Gimignano, Monteriggioni &
Chianti in 1 Day
After 7 days of Free & Easy, we finally booked a day
tour for the 1st time in our trip through GetYourGuide website (link). The main reason for the day trip? We wouldn’t be
able to do it with public transport to the 4 destinations (Siena, San
Gimignano, Monteriggioni & Chianti) in one day by ourselves. Besides, it
was a good way to finally able to sit and dose off in a bus between
destinations! =)
Since we needed to be at the meeting point (Santa Maria
Novella train station) at 8.45am, we quickly ate our simple breakfast of bread
& Nutella at Hotel Aldobrandini with hot chocolate & juice. There were
lots of people at the meeting point and we quickly found our tour operator (CiaoFlorence)
and were given a sticker. We were led to another location to board our bus to
start off our day.
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| Simple Breakfast of Croissant + Nutella |
The bus crossed the beautiful Chianti hills before
arriving at Monteriggioni – a small walled medieval village built in 1213 at
hilltop. Our bus stopped at the tourist bus parking area and we had to hike up
some steep road before reaching the village front gate. Once we reached there,
our tour guide dashed off to the front gate without a thought for those
struggling members on the steep path. She told us the time to meet at the bus
parking area and off we went to explore Monteriggioni ourselves.
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| Monteriggioni from afar |
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| Beautiful Chianti Landscape |
Basically Monteriggioni is a small village where one
could walk from front to end in less than 10minutes. It did look like those
medieval villages in movie where everything is inside the city wall. We crossed
the Piazza Roma before walking towards the gate at the opposite side.
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| More Chianti Landscape |
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| Finally reaching the Front Gate of Monteriggioni |
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| In front of Piazza Roma |
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| Church & Tower |
The main attraction was the city wall where soldier stood
guard in Middle Ages. There were 2 access points for the city walls – one near
the front gates another at the back gate but both were not connected. The view
from the city wall was breathtaking with endless Chianti hill.
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| Let's go up to the Wall! |
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| I'm a Medieval Guard! |
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| The Guard can see everything from the top |
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| At the Rear Gate |
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| It's a Small Town |
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| Going up to another side... |
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| More Landscape |
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| The Wall near the Front Gate is longer |
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| A View before going up |
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| A Paranomic View from the Wall |
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| I thought i'm in Game of Thrones... |
Unfortunately we only had less than an hour to explore
the village thus we had to rush back to the tourist bus parking area. For those
expecting a tour bus bringing you right in front of an attraction or waiting
for you right there would be disappointed. All the destinations in this tour
required lots of hiking and walking from parking area to the main sight – be
warned!!!
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| Leaving Monteriggioni |
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| It's a Long Walk |
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| What is this?! |
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| Our Bus for the Day |
Our 2nd destination of the day was Siena –
another medieval town which had been declared as UNESCO world heritage site. As
usual, there was a long walk uphill to reach the main gate. Our tour guide
dashed off again and we were trying to keep up with her and to memorize the
path as we would need to come back again later.
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| Getting near to Siena |
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| One of the Piazza in Siena |
We were led to Piazza del Campo – a shell-shaped piazza famous for Polio Horse Race. The beautiful Palazzo Pubblico & Torre del Mangia was right in front of the piazza. It was truly an amazing sight. The local tour guide handed out earphone devices and started to explain the history to us.
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| Walking through the Street |
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| It leads us to Piazza del Campo |
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| Sammy with Palazzo Pubblico & Torre del Mangia |
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| The Shell-Shaped Piazza |
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| Listening to the Guide under the HOT SUN! |
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| Let's have a Panonramic View, shall we? |
She then led us through the narrow and steep Siena alleys
to reach the majestic Duomo (Siena Cathedral). This Duomo was so beautifully
built and I must say it could rival the famous Milano Duomo. It was stunning
externally and internally!
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| Going through Narrow & Steep Alley in Siena |
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| Here is the Duomo in Siena! |
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| The Floor |
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| The Ceiling |
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| Stained Glasses |
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| The Exterior |
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| The Dome |
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| One of Michelangelo unfinished work, a missing statue at the top right... |
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| Going into another section... like a library |
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| Amazing Ceiling! |
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| Even the wall is stunning! |
After that we had some free time and our tour guide told
us the meeting point. We were trying to ask the tour guide some direction but
she rudely say “I don’t know how to read your map” – WTH?!!! Such bad service!
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| Nice Street Light! |
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| Rushing to keep up |
After that we ignored her and went to Gino Cacino (rated
no.2 restaurant in Siena in tripadvisor) for lunch. The restaurant was totally
covered by flowers thus it was quite difficult to find. Once we found it, we
were greeted by the friendly owner who recommended us to have 2 Panini with 4
different flavours so that we could try as much as possible. We were also given some free wine to taste. We ended up grabbing a
bottle of beer & sparkling water and was amazed that at least the price
here was not too markup. We enjoyed the Panini so much until we ordered an
extra porchetta since it was the best of the 4 flavours we tried. The restaurant
was crowded by the time we left and we spotted another couple ordering the
cheese and ham platter which looked so lovely! UGH!!! We missed the chance!!!
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| Nice View when we were lost! |
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| Finally Found it!!! |
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| Beer, Water, Panini & Wine!!!! YUM YUM!!! |
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| Oh Dear! Look at the thickness of this CHEESE! |
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| Lots of different Flavours.. |
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| The Cheese & Ham Platter of another Couple.. :p |
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| Menu! |
We went back to Piazza del Campo to take more pictures
before heading back to our meeting point to leave Siena. I guess a downside of
joining a day tour would be the lack of time to thoroughly enjoy a place.
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| At Piazza del Campo |
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| A Wishing Well? |
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| A Panoramic View of Piazza del Campo |
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| Goodbye Piazza del Campo |
The bus then took us to San Gimignano, yet another medieval
town declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO and also owned as the Town of Fine
Towers. We were informed that our tour included a free ice cream tasting and the
tour guide would distribute us some coupons for it. However, we never received
our coupon while others had them! It was ridiculous as we were right in front
of the tour guide when we got down from the bus. It was not like we would
easily miss as we were the only 2 Asians in the bus! We had to rush to catch
the tour guide as she already dashed off (again) and asked for our coupon on
the steep hill.
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| Continue on to our Journey |
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| A Hike before Reaching the Front Gate *Panting* |
Our first impression of San Gimignano was it was really
full of skycrapers!!! The 2nd impression? – Long queue for ice cream
at Gelateria Dondoli which proclaimed itself as the World’s Best Gelato! So was
it really that good? The answer was a million YES! The mango gelato was true
heaven!!! YYUUMMM!!!!!!!!
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| Rushing to catch up again |
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| Here you are - Skycrapers! |
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| Long Queue for Gelato! |
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| Best Gelato in the World! |
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| I'm rendered Speechless! |
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| Mango & Rosemary Strawberry |
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| Let's continue on! |
We explored the town ourselves and walked through Piazza
della Cisterna, the Duomo and some alleys. Since we were given very short time
to explore, we quickly went back to Gelateria Dondoli to grab another Gelato
before dashing off to the bus parking area which was like 10minutes away!
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| Is this the Twin Towers? |
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| There are skycrapers everywhere! |
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| Narrow Alley! |
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| More Narrow Alley! |
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| Sammy at the Tourist Street =P |
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| I think this is the Twin Towers! |
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| The Duomo in San Gimignano |
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| At the Duomo Courtyard |
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| A Well in Piazza della Cisterna |
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| Piazza del Cisterna |
We were still eating the gelato when we reached the bus
and the tour guide told us to finish the gelato while we were still waiting for
others as no food was allowed on the bus. We were quite surprised as we were
not informed and there were no signs on the bus about this. Besides we saw
other passengers eating on the bus earlier as well. We were trying to finish
our gelato as quick as possible but once the last passengers arrived, the tour
guide rudely knocked on the window from the bus and told us to throw away the
gelato. What a b!tch!!! She wouldn’t even give us another minute and kept
talking to us very loudly to throw away. I would definitely give CiaoFlorence a
low rating for this kind of service. Find
another tour operator! I’m sure they will have better and more attentive tour
guide! This one was RUDE, UNHELPFUL & DASHED OFF without considering the
members are struggling to keep up!
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| Torture Museum? Seriously?! |
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| A Landscape View from the Village |
Our last destination was a wine tasting at Chianti area. We
were led into a wine estate for some wine explanation before being ushered to
the tasting room which happened to be in an attic! How horrible! It was hot and
there was no view at all. We were served 3 types of wines along with some
sliced cold meats and salami but we were not really enjoying it. I would much
prefer my wine tasting experience in Santorini than this over a billion times (link)!
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| Walking to the Wine Estate |
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| The Wine Estate |
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| Inside the Cellar |
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| Coldcut Meat, Salami & Bread with Olive Oil |
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| Meager amount of wine there |
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| Inside the Hot Attic |
After the wine tasting, we went out to take some pictures
of the landscape before getting on the bus to end our trip. It was 7.30pm++
when we reached SM Novella train station and we’d decided to call it a day.
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| Landscape around the Wine Estate |
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| Sammy was there! |
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| Sammy is enjoying the View |
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| Grapes! |
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| Beautiful View huh? |
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| Nice Flowers |
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| Goodbye Chianti |
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| Blue & Green |
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| At Florence Finally |
We went
into a grocery stall to grab Bellini and mozzarella cheese and ate those for
dinner. The cheese was really yummy with different spices on different pieces
and blended really well with Bellini. We would have to catch a morning train
at 6.50am tomorrow for our next destination – Rome!
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| Lots of Cheap Wines |
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| Sammy is happy with his choice of Bellini, Mozarella & Salatini |
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| Yum Yum!!! |
Next Day (A Day in Rome - the Eternal City)
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