photo – Simone (flickr.com/photos/ssidephotography/)
Monteriggioni is located just a few miles above Siena, in the heart of Tuscany. It is a small town, more specifically, a castle that can be walked around in five minutes.
This city was built in the beginning of the XIII century and soon became a military post with the purpose to defend the borders in the north of Siena against the Florentine invasions.
photo – Paolo Ramponi (flickr.com/photos/castellitoscani/)
Nowadays, the city remains practically with the same structure of the time it was built, its walls made with big stone blocks and its 14 towers were immortalized by Dante in the Divine Comedy, as an allegory to the deepest abyss of the world, in Inferno: “For, as upon its rounded rampart wall/ Montereggion is crowned with towers,/ So here these huge horrendous giants, whom Jove,/ Still threatens from heaven when he thunders, /With half their bodies towered high above, /The bank that winds around the sunken hole.”
photo – pire digital (flickr.com/photos/puredigital/)
Inside the fortress there’s few to see: a plaza, a Romanesque church, some houses, stores, a few restaurants and hotels and an amazing view through the walls. Every year in July, the city revives the magic of the past for a few days in a medieval party.
photo – Divina Toscana (flickr.com/photos/48121914@N08/)
It’s a place with charm, typically medieval that sends us to another age, and we’d love to revisit it when the medieval fair takes place, because, we would, without a doubt, mentally travel through time and live a magnificent past, in the present moment!
Where to stay
Relais La Costa – Monteriggioni (link)
Texts: Cíntia Oliveira
