Saint Gimignano In the heart of Etruria in the province of Siena on the border with Grosseto is San Gimignano, one of the most interesting villages to visit in all of Tuscany. The historic center of this typically medieval town was declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 1990. The town was built in the 10th century along the Via Francigena which connected northern Europe with Rome through the sanctuaries. The village as we see it today evokes an image of industrious, enterprising, elegant and refined medieval Italy. San Gimignano is also famous for its 14 towers (which originally were 72) erected as a symbol of the wealth and power of the merchant families who lived there. These pinnacles circumscribe the perimeter of the city and are its emblem a bit like the skyscrapers for New York, an example that fits perfectly as San Gimignano is also called the “Manhattan of the Middle Ages”. The darkest period in the history of this town was 1348, the year in which the village was hit by the black plague which decimated the population leading to a general impoverishment of the whole area as the transits that previously took place on the Francigena moved to new ones. roads cutting off San Gimignano from the directions of commercial development. This bad news for the times proved to be a fortune today as the lack of financial means made it impossible to renew the urban and architectural aspect of the town that has come to us exactly as it was in the Middle Ages. The historic center of San Gimignano is the place from which to start visiting the city, with its narrow and uphill streets full of shops that lead to the two main squares: that of the Duomo and largo della Cisterna. In the first you will be able to see the Palazzo Nuovo and the loggia of the Municipality, while in the other there is an ancient well of the thirteenth century and around it is surrounded by some of the famous towers of San Gimignano. Among the “unmissable” places in the village is the town bell tower (which can be visited only for a fee) which stands next to the collegiate church of Santa Maria Assunta, the most important religious building. Inside there are a series of frescoes and statues of great value and it is also the seat of the Museum of Sacred Art. Another place of interest located in the city center is the San Gimignano 1300 museum, a journey back in time in the history of the world heritage village. The heart of the exhibition is the miniature reconstruction of the town, a 27 square meter large ceramic model that architects, historians and artisans worked on who hand-rebuilt 800 buildings, palaces, fortifications and above all the 72 towers. San Gimignano is also called the city of Bio and Slow Food in the historic center it is in fact possible to taste or buy many local food and wine products including Cinta Senese cold cuts, wines and fine oils.