Italy Trip - Day 27 - San Gimignano
We still had Grandma and Grandpa with us, and we were looking for a day trip near Lucca. They had stayed in San Gimignano on a previous trip, and loved it, so we headed there for the day.
Those of you who know our family name recognize the connection. Though Buddie’s grandfather had childhood years in Lucca, somewhere back down the line, we had family in San Gimignano. And in the strangest way, walking inside the walls of this ancient city felt like coming home to me. This was my town. It was a wonderful feeling.
The first order of business was finding a public restroom. This actually took a great deal of wandering around, and I managed to use the men’s side of the restroom. (In my defense, it was not clearly marked, and there were separate stalls for everyone.) Still, typical of me. Gotta go, give me a place to go.
One of the first shops that captured our attention was a weapons shop. We stayed true to our “travel light” plans, but there was much here to hold our interest.
We had no specific plans for the day.
Grandma and Grandpa had some things they wanted to see. Our crew wanted to meander and drool over the weapons store. Buds and I loved looking at the artwork in windows. It was a moseying kind of day.
After some time apart, we met up with the grands in a central plaza. One of San Gimignano’s claims to fame is a “World Champion Gelateria.”
And just down the hill from a World Champion Gelateria is “The Best Ice Cream In The World.” Obviously, the way to handle a competition like this is to try one before lunch and one after.
Started with the World Champion: 
San Gimignano makes its living off of the bellies of visiting hordes. Buds had rounded up what seemed to be the one non-touristy lunch spot in town Da i’ Mariani. However once we had gotten there, we discovered it was also super-typical. In this case, super-typical in that Italy seems to make space for passionate amateurs to run tiny, tiny businesses. This place was manned by this super nice guy: 
It was a bit much for the younger crowd, so I wandered off down the street to a more kid-friendly spot with the three young-uns while Buds stayed with his parents to explore obscure meats.
He texted me a picture of his scrumptious lunch to rub it in:
But the great thing is, the kids and I had an awesome lunch, too. Yessa chose some sort of an apple-glazed pork chop that was fantastic.
And we found a buddy for Cap-Cap, a friend Buster created from a water bottle cap early on in our trip.
Monkey had a hilarious name for this Lady Friend, but she’ll have to post it in the comments because she’s in bed and I can’t remember what it was.
After lunch, we had “The World’s Best Ice Cream,” and played around in the plaza.
For the record, my favorite gelato of the whole trip was from “The World’s Best Ice Cream.” I’m not sure anyone else agreed, but I’m willing to go back to test it again.
We made time to wander the walls to look out over the countryside.
And to wrap things up we had a chance for some final photos.
Several photos in this post were taken by Buddie’s Dad. Thanks for sharing them so generously.
Sicily and San Gimignano, my two favorite spots of the whole trip. I look forward to our return and actually staying in San Gimignano to experience it at night.
