The Castle: Monteriggioni
Location: Monteriggioni, Tuscany, Italy

My expectation of visiting a castle was guardsmen at the gates, statuesque horses, kings with crowns and of course a moat. Sort of like how I felt seeing the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. Sort of. But, not quite. Maybe I have seen too many fairytales or may I was just visiting a few hundred years too late.

Monteriggioni in Northern Italy is quite the spectacle even sans the symbolic “royalty” sightings.

We had rented a car and were leisurely driving through the Northern Italy countryside when we stumbled upon Monteriggioni. This day the castle was mostly filled with school children on a field trip. Those were some very lucky kids. I can only remember going to the local zoo for my elementary outings. Never visiting an Italian castle.
Monteriggioni Castle has turned into most of a tourist attraction than anything else. With its cafe, souvenir shop and leather shoe store it’s hard to picture the majestic happenings of it’s prior usage.

Though I have checked off this goal on my bucket list, I still want to go to a castle that has a moat (& maybe a princess)!

Read more Northern Italy stories…

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