San Gimignano does not have a train station. That is the first thing you need to know and the thing most guides bury in the middle of a paragraph after spending three sentences describing medieval towers.
The nearest station is Poggibonsi. You get there by train, then you get a bus. The bus takes 25 minutes and drops you at the south gate. It sounds simple. On a quiet Tuesday in October it is simple. On Easter Sunday, with a family, it is a completely different situation — and I know because I was there.
This is what actually happens and how to handle it.
Train or direct bus: the two ways to get from Florence to San Gimignano and which one actually makes sense
If you’re based in Florence for a few days and planning this as a day trip, option one is the train from Santa Maria Novella to Poggibonsi, then bus 130 to San Gimignano.The train takes around 50 minutes. The bus takes 25 minutes. Total journey roughly one hour and twenty minutes with a good connection.
Option two: direct bus from Florence to San Gimignano. Longer journey but no transfer, no connection to worry about, and for families with luggage or children it is significantly simpler. If you have the choice, take the direct bus. Most people do not know it exists and default to the train-bus combination without realising there is an easier way.
If you take the train from Florence, download the Trenitalia app before you go. Buy your ticket on the app. Tickets purchased on the app do not need validation — you just board. Paper tickets from the machine must be validated in the green and white boxes on the platform before you get on. Miss this and you travel without a valid ticket. The fine is not small.
One practical note for people arriving at Santa Maria Novella by tram: the tram stop is not called Santa Maria Novella. It is called Alamanni — Stazione. It lands directly in front of the station entrance. You have arrived.
What happens at Poggibonsi on a Sunday when nobody tells you the ticket office is closed
We arrived at Poggibonsi on Easter Sunday. The station was deserted. The ticket office was closed. The bus stop was right outside the station — anonymous, no signage worth speaking of, no information about what to do next.
On a normal weekday the ticket office at Poggibonsi is open and you can buy bus tickets there without any difficulty. On Sundays, Italian public holidays, April 25, May 1, June 2, and the Easter weekend — it is closed. Plan accordingly.
The bus accepts contactless tap and go payment. But here is the detail that catches families: one card, one ticket. You cannot tap the same card twice. If you are two people sharing one credit card, or a family of four with one card between you, you have a problem. The bus driver will not let you on without individual valid tickets for each passenger.
The fix is simple but you have to do it before you leave Florence. Buy bus tickets at a tabacchi the day before or the morning you leave. Bus 130 tickets are standard regional bus tickets sold at any tobacconist. Bring multiple payment cards if you do not have cash. Do not assume the station will be open when you arrive.
If you are caught without tickets and contactless is your only option, each person needs their own card. One tap per card per journey. There is no workaround.
The first thing to do when you arrive in San Gimignano — before you do anything else
The bus drops you at Porta San Giovanni, the main medieval gate at the southern end of town. From there you walk into one of the most intact medieval towns in Italy — stone towers, narrow alleys, the kind of place that stops you mid-sentence the first time you see it properly.
One practical thing to do immediately on arrival: check the return bus times and photograph the schedule. The return bus leaves from Porta San Giovanni — not from Porta San Matteo at the northern end of town, which is where people who have walked straight through tend to emerge. The last bus to Poggibonsi runs around 8:35pm. Miss it and you are calling a taxi that will be expensive and not easy to find. Do not find this out the hard way. Check the schedule the moment you arrive.
Parking: the lots near the gates fill by 10:30am. P1 Giubileo is cheaper, bigger, and has a shuttle bus to the centre. Locals know this. Tourists do not. The area around the historic centre is ZTL — restricted traffic, cameras, automatic fines that arrive at your home weeks after you return. Do not drive past the parking lots looking for a closer spot. Park, walk in, problem solved.
Gelateria Dondoli: why the queue is longer than any other gelato shop in Tuscany
Gelateria Dondoli in Piazza della Cisterna. The line moves faster than it looks. Go once, get the Crema di Santa Fina — saffron gelato with pine nuts, named after the town’s patron saint, made with San Gimignano saffron. You cannot get this anywhere else on earth and that is not a marketing phrase. The saffron here is a DOP-protected product that has been cultivated in this specific soil since the Middle Ages and disappeared for 300 years before being revived in 1990. The gelato is the reason Sergio Dondoli won international awards. It is worth stopping for.
Treat it as a quick stop, not an activity. Join the line, order, move on.
The free tower with a better view than the famous one everyone pays to climb
The Torre Grossa in the Palazzo Comunale is the tallest tower and where everyone queues. €8 entry, 30 minute wait on busy days. Two hundred metres away, the Rocca di Montestaffoli fortress has a free tower to climb. Almost empty. The view covers the entire countryside and you can see all the other towers from it. Skip Torre Grossa, go to the Rocca, save the money and the time.
The Collegiata di Santa Maria Assunta — the Duomo — looks plain from outside. Inside it is covered in medieval fresco cycles that make the whole town feel more real and older than anything on the main street. Most people walk past it. Go in.
The Church of Sant’Agostino at the northern end of town is the best interior in San Gimignano for art and almost always quiet. If you are going to go inside one church, make it this one.
Fonti Medievali — the old stone wash fountains below the walls — are free and almost entirely unvisited. A real piece of daily medieval life that has survived intact. Walk down to them.
For a glass of local wine: Vernaccia di San Gimignano is the town’s signature white wine and the only white DOCG wine in Tuscany. Find a proper enoteca and try it. This is not something you can get anywhere else.
The three things worth buying in San Gimignano — and everything else to leave on the shelf
The main street sells mass-produced Italian trinkets. Generic ceramics, cheap leather, products with Tuscan labels made nowhere near Tuscany. Leave it all on the shelf.
Three things worth buying: Zafferano di San Gimignano DOP — real saffron with the certification seal, €35 to €40 per gram, produced in tiny quantities by hand from flowers that bloom for exactly one day a year. Ceramiche Elena on Via San Giovanni — handmade ceramics with a strong personal style, genuinely local, and Elena ships internationally. Vernaccia wine from a proper enoteca, not a tourist shop. If you buy one food souvenir from this town, make it the saffron. It is the reason the towers were built.
Why we left too early and what San Gimignano looks like after the tour buses go home
We did not stay the night on our first visit. We left in the late afternoon and watched the people checking into their hotels walk slowly through Piazza della Cisterna with nowhere to be. The town was emptying. The light was changing. The golden hour was beginning and we were running for a bus.
By 5pm the tour groups are gone. The streets go quiet. Locals come out for aperitivo. The towers catch the last light. The restaurants stop their tourist pricing and become what they actually are. San Gimignano becomes a completely different place in the evening — quieter, warmer, and exactly what the photographs promised.
Day trip San Gimignano is one experience. San Gimignano after 5pm is another one entirely. If your itinerary can absorb one night here, take it.
Everything you need before you leave Florence: tickets, shoes, coins and the last bus time
Bus tickets: buy at a tabacchi in Florence or Poggibonsi in advance. Do not rely on the station ticket office being open on Sundays or Italian holidays. One tap and go card per person — bring multiple cards if you are a group.
Last bus from San Gimignano to Poggibonsi: around 8:35pm. Check the current schedule before you travel. The bus leaves from Porta San Giovanni at the south gate, not the north gate.
Public toilets: bring €1.50 in coins. There is a quieter bathroom further along the main street and down a side alley to the right. The one at the entrance has a queue and a very determined guardian.
Shoes: cobblestones and hills all day. Wear proper walking shoes. Not fashion trainers. Not thin-soled flats. Comfortable shoes that can handle stone streets for four to six hours. This sounds obvious until it is 2pm and your feet are finished.
Avoid weekends and Italian public holidays if you can: April 25, May 1, June 2, Easter weekend. Go on a weekday in March, early April, or October. The town you find on a quiet Tuesday morning is unrecognisable from the version that exists on a summer Sunday.