I have absolutely no idea how it happened but when Wendy and Martin (my New Zealand Family), Carol (my wife) and Catherine (a dear friend to us all) went to Italy in 1992 we all fell for San Gimignano and one amongst us christened the place San Jimmy Banana. For us that has been its name ever since. It was probably the most commercially aware of the tourist towns of Tuscany twenty years ago so although I've been back since then the changes have not been quite so great as, for example, in Volterra. Having said that one now has to pay to go into the Duomo and no photos are allowed there either. The queue outside the only public toilet I saw inside the walls was long (cafés are obliged to let the public use their facilities) but at least the outflow from it was not pouring down the street as it was last time. All in all it is still a beautiful place with a marvellous history and the fact that all we tourists want to go and see it is testament to that.
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| Notice on the door of the public toilets at the car park below the city |
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| The Southern Entrance Gate |
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| Just inside the main gate |
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| Handbags everywhere and in every colour, shape and size |
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| The 'main' street |
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| Looking back towards the main gate |
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| One of the Antony Gormley** statues looks on |
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| Wild boar are everywhere usually with something stuck in their mouth. |
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| The main square with yet another Antony Gormley statue |
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| A little potter's studio or rather a potter's little studio |
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| with a splendid trades sign |
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| Yet another Gormley way up high....very high |
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| ....that high |
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| Our lunchtime café - superb formagio |
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| The street out to the North |
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| An absolutely splendid purveyor of goodies |
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| The terrazzo where Wendy and I sat and listened to a musician (and bought his CD) 20 years ago. It was lunchtime so we had the square to ourselves (The siesta seems to be a thing of the past in towns like this). Now the terazzo is fenced off and is the entrance to the Duomo and only available to those who pay. The inside of this Duomo is completely covered in frescos. |
**There are (or were) Antony Gormley statues everywhere.
