San Gimignano
UNESCO World Heritage Site (Historic Centre Of San Gimignano, 1990, Criteria I, Iii And Iv) · San Gimignano, Tuscany
Fourteen medieval tower houses still stand over a Tuscan hill town that once had something like seventy-two of them, built by rival families who could not out-fight each other so settled for building higher. The town made its money on the pilgrim road to Rome and on saffron, then plague and a shifted trade route froze it in the fourteenth century, which is why it survives intact enough to be a World Heritage site. Inside the walls there is a frescoed cathedral, a church holding Benozzo Gozzoli's life of St Augustine that costs nothing to see, the one tower you are allowed to climb, and a white wine that was the first in all of Italy to be granted a controlled designation. It is also one of the most coach-toured places in Tuscany, so the town before ten in the morning and after six in the evening is a different town entirely from the one in between. Stay the night and you get the towers to yourself twice, once at dawn and again after dinner, which is the whole argument for not doing this as a day trip out of Florence.
Piazza del Duomo, San Gimignano, Tuscany, 53037, Italy
The town itself is open streets with no ticket. Civic Museums 1 April to 31 October 10:00-19:30 with last entry 19:00, and 1 November to 31 March 11:00-17:30 with last entry 17:00; 26 December to 6 January 10:30-18:30; closed 25 December. The Collegiata April to October Monday to Friday 10:00-19:30, Saturday to about 17:00 and Sunday from 12:30, with shorter winter hours, closed to visitors 16 January to 15 February and on 12 March, and closed without notice during services. Sant'Agostino 10:00-12:00 and 15:00-19:00 in summer, 09:00-12:00 and 15:00-18:00 in winter.