San Pyjamas

We decided to spend our final day in Florence out of Florence, on a day trip to San Gimignano or as we came to call it, San Pyjamas.
San Pyjamas is a small medieval town deep in the Tuscan countryside, set high on a hill some hour bus ride out of Florence. It’s picturesque, touristy and we were deadest on going there, even if it did start storming before we even left the bus station.
It was our first sign of bad weather since we had arrived in Italy, if you discount the storms that diverted us to Rome from Pisa and the lightning we had seen on the horizon from the hotel’s rooftop terrace the night before.
Anyway, we had bought our bus ticket for 14 euro return the day before when we booked our tickets to Siena and we were loathe to waste them.
We hoped the weather would be clearer at the famous tourist spot and were disappointed when we stopped to change buses at Poggibonsi to find it was raining even harder, the thunder crashing even louder and more lightning than we had experienced in Florence.
We had half an hour to wait for the connecting bus and for a good 10 minutes we were in two minds about whether or not to continue to San Pyjamas.
Concluding that we had nothing to lose by going, as we had our return ticket already paid for and could always get straight on the next bus back to Florence and our beautiful hotel, we boarded the bus to San Pyjamas.
It seemed fate was finally working in our favour because only a few minutes out of the town, on the steep, slow hill climb, the rain stopped. Mind you San Pyjamas is famous for its views, not for its cloud cover and it was with some disappointment we looked across the valley to see our view only extended a mere hundred metres or so before being lost in palls of white.
We were surprised by the number of tourists who had also braved the weather to visit this place and set off up the main drag towards the infamous towers of the town. There used to be several of these towers, 72 to be exact, built in the 11th century as a monument to the town’s wealth but now just 13 remain.
Shops filled with wine, dried pasta, biscotti, olive oil, leather and meat goods lined the pedestrian-friendly and narrow streets. Catering to the tourist hordes in their thousands, Americans flocked to buy the wine only produced in San Gimignano. With a price tag of two bottles for 8 euro alarm bells should have been ringing as to its quality. We steered clear of the pack and found ourselves outside the Romanesque duomo known also as the Collegiate. After buying our entry to it and the accompanying museum, we went inside to find floor to ceiling frescoes. The frescoes, painted by someone with no good knowledge of male and female form by the name of Ghirlandaio, depicted on the one side of the basilica the Old Testament and on the other side, the New. The works were simpler, cruder in form compared to the classical style we had seen in Florence’s very famous duomo. As I said, he wasn’t much good at depicting the differences between the sexes, giving Jesus the most womanly hips I have ever seen, some almost boobs and thunder thighs. It was so odd. There was also a gruesome fresco of what I presume was supposed to be hell, where a devil/demon was shitting into the mouth of a “sinner”. Lovely, just lovely.
It was wholey different to the other churches we had entered and yet I could tell we were slowly reaching that point of too many churches - and we hadn’t even made it to Rome yet!
Out the basilica door and into the museum. It held, as far as we could surmise from the scant amount of information next to each item on display, the relics, altar pieces, tomb coverings and artefacts that had belonged to a now gone convent and basilica in San Pyjamas. Some of the marble tombs dated back to the 1400s while some of the altar pieces were just last century.
On the whole it interested us very little, or maybe it was just because we were hungry.
We set off in search of food and happened to find ourselves at the same restaurant I had eaten at several years ago when I was last here with Sophie.
One lasagne and one spaghetti (did I mention that while it had stopped raining , it was actually a bit chilly) and a glass of wine for Sam ( I was still feeling the effects of last night’s bottles).
After lunch we set off to find the “panoramic spot”, just metres from the main drag with uninterrupted 180-degree views. On a clear day, it would have been stunning as it was, with some low cloud still hanging around the mountain tops, it was beautiful.
It was finally enough to convince Sam to pull out his camera, though it died within minutes. The battery life of his camera has left much to be desired.
We continued our wandering back up the hill towards the famous Torre Grossa, the tallest tower in San Pyjamas.
We paid our 5 euro each for the opportunity to climb this tower and I am so glad we did. My legs probably aren’t given the 218 steps we had to climb to get to the top.
Just a quick note here about the steps we have climbed on this trip thus far:
218 - steps to the top of Torre Grossa
416 - steps to the top of the Florence Duomo
300+ - steps the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa
90 - steps to the reception of our Hotel Annabella in Florence (actually another 20 steps to our room)
60 - steps to our top floor of our Hotel Toscana in Florence
70+ - steps to our top floor room of our hotel Helvetia Pisa
60+ - steps to the top floor room of our hostel in London
We should also mention only two of these places had an elevator and they were the two Florence hotels and were only used when we first checked in with our luggage.
So, at the top of the tower and the view was AMAZING. The sun started to come out just after we stepped out on the top and it was 360 degree panoramic awesomeness. The Tuscan hillside, the terracotta rooftops, the old walls of the town and the other towers - it was all there.
We have seen some pretty amazing views while on this trip, especially in Tuscany, but this was probably my favourite so far. Probably because we weren’t rushed off. At both Pisa and the Duomo in Florence, we were on limited time and had maybe five minutes maximum at the top. Here, no-one who worked there was even at the top of the tower and we were free to look and walk around and do whatever we wanted. Mind you, there was an enormous bell enclosed in a metal cage across the entire mid section of the tower top so to cross from side to side meant bending over to at least pygmi height.
With the sun out and the clouds cleared from the sky, it was beginning to get quite warm and we headed back down. This is always the tricky part on these tower climbs I have found and this was no different. I was also wearing a skirt that has given me more than one Marilyn moment and climbing down this ladder to the first landing afforded everyone below me a stellar view of my undies.
Back down on the ground, we agreed that was well worth the trip out from Florence and having “done” the attractions went to the bus stop to head back to the city.
We had to be back before 7pm as Sam had to pick up his suit from the shop before they closed.
Back in Florence, we picked up the suit from the lady who had sold it to Sam the day before. It was only then, having already known where we were headed that day that she told us that Poggibonsi, the town we had to change buses at, had a sinister history.
In the 70s, a serial killer preyed on young couples and many were killed in dark and isolated places throughout the town.
It was a very famous crime spree and a few years ago a film director came to the town to make a movie about it.
The woman told us she didn’t want to tell us until after we had been but said the only time she had ever been there, she didn’t like the place and it was “weird”.
So, having escaped the scene of the crime, we thanked the woman and set out for a final dinner in Florence. After I bought my very fake Prada handbag at the markets.
We returned to the place we had been to only three nights before because we had enjoyed it so thoroughly - partly because it was comparatively cheap.
It looked no different to all the other terrace restaurants and how we found it the first time I’m still not sure.
Still, we sat and took our time ordering, splashing out on a first and second course each and a bottle of Chianti.
Ravioli in butter and sage for me and gnocchi santorrini for Sam. Sooo good. Oh and of course our oil and bread. We are loving this oil and bread thing - and it’s all standard everywhere you go regardless of what you order.
Then for mains, mixed grill for me, which I never ever order but had tasted Sam’s the time before and it was yummy, and Sam got the chicken breast.
For dessert, tiramisu for me and chocolate fondant for Sam, topped off with a glass of limonchello for Sam.
And that was all for the night. Went back to the hotel and packed our bags for a relative early morning to head to Siena.
Alysia (August 13)