About an hour south of Florence is the medieval town of San Gimignano, a Unesco World Heritage site since 1990. During the Middle Ages, its location in Val d’Elsa, 56 km south of the Tuscan capital, provided an important rest stop for pilgrims traveling to or from Rome on the Via Francigena.

San Gimignano is famous today for its fortified tower houses, a skyline that has become famous all over the world. According to Unesco, “the Historic Center of San Gimignano is a cultural site of exceptional value, since it has treasured its architectural homogeneity and its original urban layout.