"Monteriggioni - Small is beautiful" Monteriggioni by Willettsworld

Monteriggioni - blink and you'll miss it. It's that small. It was built in 1203 and 10 years later became a garrison town. It is completely encircled by about 10 metre high walls with 14 heavily fortified towers, built to guard the northern borders of Siena's territory against invasion from Florence.

Dante used Monteriggioni as a simile for the deepest abyss at the heart of his "Inferno", which compares the town's "ring-shaped citadel crowned with towers" with giants standing in a moat.

Within the walls, lies a small sleepy town that consists of a large piazza, a pretty Romanesque church (on the square), a few houses, shops, restaurants and hotels.