The Legend of St Jimmy

A couple weeks before we flew to Italy, I was on the phone with my buddy Jason discussing what we had planned on this trip and he said, very seriously, “if you only do one thing during your whole stay, there’s a gelato shop in San Gimignano and you need to go.” Julia googled it for me. Gelateria Dondoli, right there in a piazza, across from an overly photogenic cistern (not depicted). They definitely don’t shy away from hyperbole. “World Champion” this. “Celebrities“ that. You know, the important stuff.

It sounded ominous and exciting, so of course I told Lindsay and the matter was settled. We would take a day trip an hour south of Florence to see if this little gelateria had any secrets to share with us. Who knows, maybe we’d even hit up a winery while we were in the area. After all, if this was a true blue recommendation from Jason, who I know without a doubt to have exquisite taste, as well as being Albuquerque’s foremost gelato sommelier, then ice cream in San Gimmiganano was not to be missed.

If you can’t picture yourself leaping from roof to roof, then you are what they call ‘risk adverse’.

As far as cities on a hill go, of which I have very limited experience, this was a pretty gorgeous one. I have no idea of the age difference between this town and the parts of Florence we’ve seen already (I’d check the internet but it’s full of lies), but it definitely felt older. As if the walls had more stories in them, or at least had more texture. I think one of the best ways to judge a medieval city is by how effectively you can have a sword fight while jumping from one rooftop to the next. By purely using that as a metric, San Gimmyganano gets an A+. Lindsay said I couldn’t go roof jumping. Something about Julia growing up without a father, I dunno. I couldn’t find my sword anyways

Hoping to let my tastebuds distract from my disappointment, we set a course for Gelateria Dondoli. Now, I’m not an expert on anything, let alone Italy, but it’s become apparent that the BEST attractions aren’t in the areas with the highest concentration of visitors. They’re tucked away around the corner of some impossible to pronounce backstreet, serving gizzards stuffed with truffles or selling finger paintings by some forgotten 10th century monk. They’re definitely not front and center. And I expected the same with San Jimjimjanano. But the closer we got, the more it seemed that the gelateria was indeed situated right smack in the middle of things. And I’m okay with that. Because Jason said “you need to go”.

There was only one problem.

If you stand in front of the famous gelateria, in the center of Saint Jimjam, and turn your head just slightly to the left, your eyes will come to rest on another gelato shop. It’s not hard to spot, it’s right fucking there, line of site from “Living natural treasure” Dondoli. And they have a simple phrase printed above their door in block letters: “Best ice cream in the world!”

I didn’t know who to trust any more. Jason would surely never lead me astray, but there was no arguing with the phrase best in the world. And you knew they were serious because it was written in English. We still bought gelato from Dondoli, but everything just tasted like deceit.

So we left Saint Jimmy’s behind us, going instead in search of wine and perhaps, if we were lucky, a bit more truth in advertising. Things we found in abundance at Sono Montenidoli. And we wouldn’t have found them without that recommendation from Jason.

Thank you, Jason.