Monteriggioni Abbadia Isola Colle Val d'Elsa Poggibonsi San Gimignano Volterra Casole d'Elsa Certaldo Castellina in Chianti

Siena Buonconvento San Galgano Monte Oliveto Maggiore S. Antimo Montalcino San Quirico d'Orcia Pienza Montepulciano

San Gimignano

In those times people used to go in pilgrimage to Rome to meet the Pope. It was a long journey especially for those poorer, which went by feet. To reach Rome one could choose different directions and paths, but they all met in a road called francigena because it was starting in France. People, of course, needed inns and hostels where to sleep, shops where to buy stuff, cowsheds and blacksmiths for the animals, places where have breakfast or dinner. The pilgrims going to Rome and stopping in San Gimignano had to cross the village from Saint Matthew gate to Saint John gate, facing the Cathedral and crossing through Cisterna square; as everybody does nowadays for a pleasant walk in the village. In those times it was full of shops and hospitals, blacksmiths and inns. They had so much income from all this that the village became very rich and many towers appeared. In those times who had money get the towers as today they get the villas. All this income finished as it started when the pilgrims decided (who knows why?) that it was easier going through Poggibonsi at the end of Elsa valley instead of crossing the hill. San Gimignano remained with a dry mouth and stopped to built towers. The villagers had neither the money nor the will to destroy them. If you go there early in the morning, when none is around, perhaps you could have an idea of what it was once upon a time, how it had seemed to those who travelling all the day through the countryside reached these pretty streets and found all that goodness!

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Volterra

Though visiting the centre it seems a nice medieval town with its medieval palaces, churches and squares, Volterra is much more ancient. As many of our villages around Tuscany (such as Siena itself, Colle and Monteriggioni) Volterra had been founded by the Etruschi. They were a very ancient, mysterious people, living in Tuscany since much earlier than Jesus Christ's birth. It is unknown where they came from, but we know they were excellent artisans, builders and artists. But they weren't good enough to control. To do this the Romans came. So the Romans occupied easily their territories, destroyed their towns and all the memories about their ways to live: in one word they took their place. In Volterra you can see the three heads' arch within the walls of the medieval town. The medieval town was much smaller than the Etruscan one, which was the biggest town in Tuscany in those times and it was called Velathri. They say that the arch too is an invention of this people. In those times must have been a great new!! In Volterra there is a traditional manufacture of golden and alabaster goods, which takes its origins from the Etruschi. The alabaster is a material found in these geological areas and it seems a kind of hard and transparent plaster used since the Etruschi times until nowadays to made nice things to keep home.

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Casole d'Elsa

Casole is situated on a nice hill and if you have a look from Colle or Monteriggioni to the valley you should be able to see it. Casole is thought to be a smaller village among those nearby, but in its smallness it has all it occurs. There is a church, called Collegiata, which is very old: going inside it one stands astonished for how big and beauty it is, being in such small village of course. Then there is also a fort at the top of the village, used to defend the village and nowadays for the Public Authorities or for Arts exhibitions. Indeed Casole had the Palio too: smaller and more recent than that of Siena, but it has been there since more than a century. There are only six contradas instead of the seventeen of Siena's Palio. But the difference is bigger: Siena's Palio is for Lords, Casole one is a country festival without historical parade, the people are simple and careless of formalities. But, though they are few, they are fully involved on the race: they get happy and angry just like real contrada's people.

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Certaldo

Though someone says it is not true, Boccaccio was born in Certaldo, and died there of course because shifted there his residence at the end of his life. He was a medieval writer and he is the well-known composer of a really beautiful book called Decameron. In this book a group of young girls and boys gather together to avoid the plague and to spend this time they start telling stories one to each other. Though the book is very old, we all know those stories, as that of Chichibio the cook, because they have told or performed through the centuries in our villages and houses.
In Certaldo sometimes there Boccaccio novels' performing theatre among the old bricks of Certaldo Alta, the old part of the village. There palaces, houses and streets are all of the same red colour, all made by cotto. Do you think the cotto bricks are just decorative and beautiful? Not at all: they were used so often because they didn't absorb rainy waters, which flew in the underground. Certaldo's undergrounds are all clayey, so that waters remained there. This is why in Certaldo wells are never dry and the village is always rich of water!

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