Departing Siena for San Gimignano

We awoke to rain this morning.......and on the positive side were glad we were parked in the underground garage! Small mercies!
Our plan to walk out and find a coffee/bar where we could sip our coffees outdoors changed to a full breakfast (for me) and coffee for Jeff in the hotel breakfast room.  Soon we were packed up and driving towards San Gimignano which was only about an hour away, so we had lots of time to explore along the way. We stopped in to Casole de Elsa the old walled city we had seen on our trip to Siena, a very charming village, all the signs leading into the walls inexplicably led us nowhere! We tried to find the entrance twice and gave up.....it being Sunday there was nobody we could ask. Italy is as closed up as Spain on Sundays. The bonus in that is, the roads are less busy as they are either at church or "Sunday lunch"
We were hoping the rain would keep the motorcycles off the roads and I think it did some.
The scenery is really picture postcard. We came upon a beautiful old brick building with a gorgeous garden and restaurant and shop😄 A perfect combination and we pulled into the gravel driveway. Well, you guessed it.....we couldn't even get a coffee, they were very sorry, they were preparing for either Sunday lunch or a wedding! The room was perfection! The shop was closed and we hit the road. Another walled city, Monteriggioni was admired from the road as we drove on by.
We arrived in San Gimignano with very detailed instructions on how to find our hotel, thank goodness. We could drive into the centre of the old town directly to our hotel and park to unload for 20 minutes max.  This took awhile as the narrow streets were filled with tourists.
Our Hotel Cisterna is truly lovely and I would recommend it for the location and charm. It is also very spacious for a European hotel.  The hotel takes its name from the large stone cistern (well) in the centre of the square. It's walls of brick have ivy climbing up and around the windows.  By now the sun is shining and it is quite hot. After about 20 minutes we are driving back outside the old town walls to park our car.....6 euros for 24 hours. The walk back uphill is about 600 meters......and we managed to spend about 200 euros on the way! The painting girls who I traveled here with in January 2015 will be amused to learn that ALL the shops that were then closed were now open......and filled with tourists. It was quite busy but we were told nothing like it would be in another months time.
We spent the day wandering the top of the town, drinking wine on the patios, eating pizza (Jeff) gelato (me). The painting girls will remember the best gelato in the world shop where we all had gelato in January. My choice was coconut flavour...yum!  Very fond memories!
We decided to dine in our hotel restaurant and the view was staggeringly beautiful, we were seated at a window to enjoy it and enjoy it we did!
We will be leaving tomorrow to visit Lucca and Pisa and staying in a little town between Pisa and Livorno.
It was a wonderful day! ❤️