D170 -- Exploring San Gimignano

We toured San Gimignano with the family today. Highlights included:

a walk up the Grand Tower, which afforded beautiful views of the town, its other towers, and the surrounding countryside;


a visit to the duomo, which had beautiful frescoes of scenes from the new and old testaments, including some very disturbing depictions of hell;


lots of picture-taking;

a fair amount of shopping;

and Patty's first squat toilet experience. For those of you unfamiliar with these wondrous facilities, it's a hole surrounded by a bit of ceramic that you squat over and then flush. Well, men stand over it; women squat. Here Dan rejoices in the fact that he's a man.

After leaving town we drove to a large grocery store, stocked up on supplies, and came home to cook dinner. We had insalata caprese, spagetti piccanti (less piccanti than before), and some locally produced vernacchia wine. Yum! After dinner I spent about 15 minutes trying to ask the owner of the house for some floor fans and an extra key and to tell him about a bug we think is living in one of the wood ceiling beams. I knew the words for key, fan, and insect, but somehow the bug thing was more difficult to explain than I expected. In hindsight I should have just let it go, but I was worried it was something that would harm the house (like termites can). He was very patient, and I finally got my point across after some jumping up and down to point to the wood beam. Patty found it all very entertaining

-Elva