However, this time we were hiring a car which was a new experience for us – in all the traveling we have done, we have never hired a car (not even in the UK) and this was going to be driving on the wrong side of the road, late at night, to a small place in the country! We got into our hire car about midnight (a new Peugeot) and after a shaky start trying to get out of the airport car park, we did well navigating directly to the right place. Well done, us!
The wedding was being held at a converted monastery called Relais Della Rovere which was built in the 11th century. We arrived at 2am and since nobody was up, went straight to bed. Some photos I took on Sunday -
Colle Val D'Elsa from the hotel -
We woke up late the next morning and missed breakfast, so took a drive into the main town to look around and get some food. By the time we got back to the hotel it was time to get ready for the wedding. Unfortunately the weather was terrible so the wedding was moved inside, but the room was beautiful and in a very brief ceremony at 3pm, Jen and Marcus were married.
After the ceremony, canapés and champagne were served while the photos were taken which gave us a chance to catch up with Jeff and Nicola who had come over with Sensis at the same time as us. Then we sat down for dinner which was about 6 courses of excellent Italian food and wine. Jeff, Nicola, me and Nick -
Jeff and Nick with Jen and a flower girl -
Not long after that, Nick and I rolled back to our room in order to get an early start the next day.
Sunday was a beautiful autumn day and after breakfast and goodbyes we headed off in our car to San Gimignano, a short drive from where we were and an amazing medieval town high up in the hills of Tuscany. As you approach the town you can see the stone towers and buildings and the walls that surround the town and it looks truly magical – the hills of Tuscany are so beautiful already (exactly as you imagine in the pictures) and with the town it’s almost too good to be true (which was similar to the feeling we had in Bruges). From just outside San Gimignano overlooking an olive grove -
A photo I found on the web of the town (I didn't take any quite so good) -
We parked the car just outside the walls and walked into the town to have a look around.
After an hour or so of wandering, we made our way back to the car and drove to Volterra, about half an hour away. Voterra is very similar to San Gimignano – maybe a little larger, and arguably not quite so picturesque (they also have a long-standing rivalry stemming back to around the 12th century). Again, we parked outside the town walls and walked in and around the town. One of the town squares -
We also stopped for lunch and had some great pizza for the bargain price of about 4 euro.
After Voterra, we headed north to Lucca – about 2 hours in the car. Lucca is another medieval town, but slightly different in that it’s not perched high up on a hill. In fact, we arrived in the city and found it a bit disappointing, but figured we would get out of the car and check out the big wall.
Of course, we then realized that the wall actually surrounded the whole of central Lucca and all the good stuff was inside. Being all flat, you didn’t really get an understanding of the town until you were right inside the walls, or even better, on top of the walls.
Apparently you can walk all the way around on the top, but by this stage we had run out of time and jumped back in the car to make our 6.30pm flight back to London.
