Italy Day 10 - A gift, the mountains, and the sea

This morning started off with a visit from friend's dad with gifts in hand. He brought us another bottle of local wine and a present from friend. Friend gave us a beautiful moka pot that I posted to Facebook earlier. It's a really lovely gift and much needed since I'm pretty sure Kris was already pricing them online for when we got home!

We drove up to San Gimignano today. This is a charming mountain top city that once again looks like it was lifted from a postcard. It features four prominent towers and a really interesting basilica. The man walls of the basilica are painted in sections detailing various stories from the Bible from Adam and Eve thru the Resurrection of Christ. I'm guessing that it was done in part because it's a powerful decoration, but also because when most of your congregants can't read, it's a helpful teaching mechanism. The Last Judgement was striking and almost unbelievably graphic. Talk about scared straight!

After having lunch and wandering the town, we decided to take a less than direct route back home. We headed almost due west to the sea and then started picking our way south. Kris detoured us to Castiglion della Pescaia. After a brief but vertical climb into the walled city center we were treated to a lovely view of the ocean.