San Gimignano & Siena

We are into our final night in Tuscany and have packed in as much as possible. We left early this morning for San Gimignano, taking the back roads through beautiful landscapes. We spent the next few hours exploring the small medieval hill town that Dante supposedly used as inspiration for his Inferno. We snacked on pastries and coffee before pizza and beer for an early lunch. We then drove onto Monteriggioni and found it almost empty. It is a very pretty town, surrounded by parapet walls, and can be circled in about 5 minutes. We then decided to drive into Siena to see the Piazza del Campo. We wandered slowly down through the town into the Piazza before stopping for another lunch in the sun at one of the restaurants overlooking the square. We ordered risotto, pizza and pappardelle with wild boar ragu and sipped slowly on a bottle of light-bodied Chianti as the sun set over the Piazza. Late in the afternoon, we walked back up to our car via the Duomo before more coffee and gelato for the drive home. We leave Italy early tomorrow morning for our final destination in Burgundy and have booked a country house in Flavigny-sur-Ozerain, with a population of 323. We will use it as a base to sample the local produce, both red and white.