Like most of the towns of Tuscany, each one seemed to have their 15 minutes of fame, which they used to amass great wealth, built extravagantly costly infrastructure, invade the neighbors, fall apart in chaotic civil war, and get taken over by a neighbor. San Gimignano did not have an auspicious start, as it was controlled by the bishop of Volterra. Any town that is occupied by a bishop from another town has to be pretty weak, and when you see Volterra in the next post, you'll agree that this couldn't have been one of the top bishoprics by any stretch of the imagination. But they managed to wrest free from the bishop's altar boy army around 1100, then squandered their freedom on these crazy towers. An interesting point here is that the towers are all inside the city since they were used to kill each other. They never got around to building a city wall, so Florence swooped down on a slow day and gobbled it up.

The town has a couple of museums and two main churches, and in addition to a flourishing tourism sector, houses a lively art scene. But it's real claim to fame are the many stone towers sprouting out of the houses, giving rise to its nickname "the Manhattan of Italy". During the Middle Ages, there were amazingly about 75 of these giant towers, used by the town's inhabitants to wage war on each other through the centuries. Now only thirteen remain, but still sufficient to give a good idea of how bizarre the town must have looked back then. It would also be quite scary to walk the streets with these huge forts towering above.

74. San Gimignano

The next day we explored Southern Tuscany, home of countless picturesque mountain villages and some of Italy's most famous wine. We weren't up to the driving challenge so we hired a van and driver, Silvio. Silvio is an old Tuscan hand, madly in love with the place, and very expressive. Unfortunately, his English isn't perfect, although it was fun listening to Somchai and Silvio miscommunicate as we barreled through the Tuscan countryside. First stop was San Gimignano, the most famous of the hill towns. Again, the hills were swathed in morning mist, but it started to break as we drove up the hill to the town. The entire town is a perfectly preserved medieval gem.