San Gimignano is the town of towers and of Vernaccia di San Gimignano, a white DOCG — not a Chianti. You see it from far off; it fills up close to. Parking is outside the walls; you walk in. At 9am Piazza della Cisterna is still a town. By 11.30 groups from the coach park occupy the main street as far as Porta San Giovanni.
«‘San Gimignano delle belle Torri’ is in Tuscany, 56 km south of Florence. It served as an important relay point for pilgrims travelling to or from Rome on the Via Francigena. The patrician families who controlled the town built around 72 tower-houses (some as high as 50 m) as symbols of their wealth and power.»
UNESCO World Heritage Centre, «Historic Centre of San Gimignano»
Torre Grossa is the civic tower, the tallest, a Comune ticket, a view over the private towers that stay closed. The August queue, without a booking, eats half an hour. You go up early. The other towers are looked at: you do not go in.
Vernaccia is drunk in a cellar, just outside or a few minutes away, not at a stall in the square with a plastic glass. It is a hill white, with serious producers a kilometre from the walls. A 45-minute booking, three wines, and you have understood more than in a shop crawl. The concierge sets the time paired with the tower, not “afterwards, we’ll see”.
Gelato in the Cisterna is a ritual, not a brand. Choose the hour, not the photographed sign. A coffee, ten minutes sitting, then down towards the car before the square becomes a corridor.
How long. An hour and a half in the town plus the cellar is a full morning. A whole afternoon in San Gimignano in July is a queue. You go back to the villa for lunch, or down to a smaller cellar on the Chianti road if the house sits that way.
In winter the town changes: fewer lines, more wind on the tower, cellar hours to check. That is when San Gimignano becomes a village again. The concierge fits transfer and visits to those months as carefully as to August — only with more quiet.
