Saturday, July 24, 2010

San Donato & San Gimignano 22/07/2010




A late afternoon drive through the rolling Tuscan landscape to find our accommodation - another agriturismo. The landscape was so gentle and as it was quite high in altitude the afternoon became a little more cooler. We passed many threshed fields, grape plantations and olive groves and yet there was still many heavily forested areas as well. We have been surprised to find how much of Italy is actually forested and there are quite a lot of national parks. The Tuscan landsacpe is dotted with litttle villas and farming compounds that are sittuated on the hilltops. Added to this are the smallish townships which usaully hark back to the medieval times. Our accommodation, San Donato is part of a small collection of farm houses and a church perched on one of these little hills. It is only a few km from the medieval town of San Gimignano.



Another late night hunt for food. This has become a typical scenario in the country areas for us. Set off into the dark at about 9.30pm and drive around looking for villas that have restaurants. Invariably you need to visit several before finding one that is either open or not booked out. Just as we were going to turn around and head for the busy centre of San Gimignano we happened on a villa that sold cheap homemade food that was just superb. A good night had eating 4 courses and drinking local wine set in the olive groves.
Fred

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