This is the third part of our travel series to Italy. We have represented Steemit all the way through our trip. As explained in part 1 and part 2, the trip was entirely financed from the proceedings of my first two ‘hits’ on Steemit. The trip was a birthday surprise for my girlfriend.
After eating cow stomach, rubbing a piglet’s nose for good fortune and having breathtaking panoramic views of Florence the previous day, we were now set to start our new day with a trip to Siena. Siena is sometimes called Italy’s loveliest medieval city with its unique central piazza (square) and we are glad that we have visited the beautiful city. The city is definitely worth visiting!
Taking the train from Florence to Siena
We woke up at 10:00 in the morning to get ready for our trip. We did not want to be bothered waking up early as holidays for us should be as relaxing and stress-free as possible. The previous day, we bought some crackers and an Italian truffles paste that we would eat in the morning as our breakfast. After our small breakfast, we finally left the hostel at 11:30 to take a train from Florence’s main central station. We noticed a long queue at the ticket office and were alarmed by the prospect that we might miss our train if we would queue up. Fortunately, but also strangely, the station has plenty of ticket machines with very few people using them. We decided to try out one of the machines. To our surprise it was extremely easy to use. The English instructions were clear, and there were various payment methods including cash and credit card.
So with our tickets in our hands, off we went for our adventure in Siena!
Arrival at Siena
The train ride took 1 hour and 18 minutes. Siena sits on three hills, something that we immediately realized when we had to take many escalators in order to exit the station. It might have been 7 or 8 escalators in total.
Once we exited the station, we turned left and immediately had a beautiful view of the landscape in which the city is settled. I was able to spot this brown-colored pigeon on a city wall from where we viewed the beautiful Tuscan landscape. Thereafter, we walked straight to the city center of Siena.
Siena was much more quiet than Florence, and we had the impression that it was a lot cheaper. For example, at a local supermarket in Siena we could buy a bottle of water for half the price in Florence. Our observation might have suffered from selection bias though. Something else we noticed was the siesta or shops being closed during some hours in the afternoon. This was very uncommon in the city of Florence, and is probably due Siena’s less touristic appeal.
Throughout the city, we have found many statues of the she-wolf who is being suckled by Remus and Romulus – the two legendary founders of Rome. Interestingly, Siena itself is said to have been founded by Senius who was a son of Remus.
Excellent lunch
Siena was also the place where we had our greatest lunch thus far. We sat down in a cafeteria and blind-picked a pasta and a light bread lunch. To our surprise, the portions were generous and the ‘light bread lunch’ was more heavy than expected.
The bread was soft and hearty, and meals were presented very well. The staff were smiling and making jokes to their customers. The staff was also very friendly to us. This is what makes us love the trip to Italy so much: Italians seem to be laughing and enjoying their lives a lot!
Beautiful narrow alleys
The main street to the historic center offers many wonderful side streets and brings you to the main attractions. You can easily wander for hours in the side streets that will undoubtedly bring you to many, for tourists hidden sight-seeing gems. You never really know what the next turn will bring.
We did for example find this beautiful Palazzo Chigi-Saracini that contains 13th century Sienese art works. The outside of the palace is beautiful! The vaulted ceilings are magnificently decorated and there is a water well that always attracts people.
Duomo di Siena (Siena Cathedral)
Our walk brought us to the splendid Siena Cathedral which is a medieval gothic church that was built from the late 12th century to the 14th century. The façade is known as one of the most fascinating in all of Italy.
See for example the splendor of this façade with its main entryway to the connected Duomo and three portals. You can see a mosaic coronation of the Virgin Mary at the top of the façade.
We bought two tickets of €7,- to enter the Cathedral. The inside was exquisite as well. One thing that, at least for me, stood out was the Piccolomini Library that houses colorful illuminated choir books and frescoes. Piccolomini was the Bishop of Siena in 1450 who became a cardinal in 1456 and who was eventually elected as Pope Pius II in 1458. This library was dedicated to him.
The colors of the ceiling and the frescoes inside the library, the luxuriously dressed participants, and the details of the landscapes and their clothes are beautiful!
Piazza del Campo
After the cathedral we went to the Piazza del Campo, a world-famous shell-shaped city square that was featured in James Bond’s Quantum Solace. It is considered to be one of Europe’s most beautiful medieval squares.
If you walk around the city, you will notice that this square forms the heart of Siena. Many of the old medieval alleys lead to the square. The famous Fonte Gaia (fountain of happiness) can also be found here.
Photo courtesy: www.intoscana.it
Another famous attraction of the square is the Palio delle contrade, a horse race that takes place twice a year. The Palio is that important for Siena that there is an Italian expression saying: “Chi dice Siena, dice Palio”, which means “Who says Siena, says Palio”.
We stayed at the square for half an hour to take a rest and to have something to drink. Afterwards, we moved back to the train station to take our ride back to our hostel in Florence.
Delicious dinner AGAIN
Once we got back to our hostel it was already 20:00. We quickly put our stuff there and immediately went out for dinner.
We found a nice looking restaurant in a cosy street in Florence where my girlfriend ordered French fries with mixed meat and where I ordered grilled king prawns with mixed salad. Look at our plates: Italian food again did not disappoint us! Again, the service was excellent. The waitresses were friendly. They asked us several times how we were doing and at the end we were served two shots of limoncello, an Italian alcoholic drink made of lemons.
This is how we ended our wonderful day.
The next day we went to Pisa, visited the world-famous Tower of Pisa and stayed in a guesthouse with a dodgy elevator. Unfortunately, this would be our last day in Italy. In our next and concluding post, we will share more about our trip to the main attractions in Pisa and the demonstration of Kurds against the genocide of their people by the Turkish government that we witnessed. We will also give some reflections of our overall trip to Florence, Siena and Pisa and of traveling in general.