78. Montefioralle

Montefioralle, like Monteriggioni, was a walled medieval town atop a mountain that served as a fortified outpost of Siena. However, once Siena was absorbed into Florence, most of the residents of Montefioralle had the good sense to decamp to a more convenient place now that the war was over. And that's how Greve was born. A half dozen families stayed up here, and if you don't mind the inconvenience, it's a very pretty place to live.

I think the villagers used more stone on the walls than on the village itself. There's just a disproportionately large town square, and a couple streets, and that's it. So we sat at the town square and had an ice cream to prolong the visit (you can see our van in the photo in the unlikely event that's of interest). We then drove back to Florence via some pretty back roads, stopping very briefly at Castellini in Chianti. This town is supposed to be the center of the Chianti wine region, but by center they meant logistics and distribution center, since the town is basically a big warehouse and office complex for the wineries, not exactly picturesque (hence, no pictures, sorry).

76. Monteriggioni

Our last stop on the day's tour was to the walled town of Monteriggioni. As you recall, I made fun of the first town we visited, San Gimignano, for spending all their money on huge towers from which they could kill each other, rather than city walls to defend themselves against neighboring towns. Well, I take it back. As you can see from these photos, the ostensibly smarter Monteriggioniites (not sure about that one) built sturdy walls around their little town, and studded them with guard towers. The town was actually a military outpost for Siena, so the menacing defences made sense. But in the end, the Florentines bribed the town mayor, so when Florence's army approached the town, he just threw the keys over the wall and they walked in.