Visiting the historic city of Siena in Italy

Septmber 29, 2017: Walking tour of Siena

Siena in Tuscany is not too far from where we were staying. Siena is only about 25 miles from our hotel, the Borgo di Cortefreda.

We left early around 8:30 after our breakfast at the hotel. The sky was a little cloudy when we started out, but began to brighten and the greys turned to bright blues. The drive was quite comfortable and our tour director was busy filling us up with details.

After about half an hour of driving, we reached the outskirts of Siena.

We began our walking tour under the supervision of our excellent guide.

Siena still remains a medival city as it retains most of the original structures including the public buildings. We walked through many of the narrow streets such as this one here.

Siena is divided into 17 Contradas (means a ward or a district) each having its animal own symbol. The folks from these districts participate in the famous horse race of Siena, Palio of Siena. 

You can see the district boundaries all over the city and the districts compete each other in the Palio played out every year in the Piazza Del Campo.

The districts are very proud of their colors and zealously mark-up themselves.

Here is a statue of a little boy marking a contrada.

Lots of chocolate and biscuit (biscotti) shops along the route.

After walking many of these tortuous, narrow streets we came to the Piazza Salimbeni to look at the statue of Sallustio Bandini. Salustio Bandini was a descendent of Piccolomini (who later became a Pope), advocate of free trade; archdeacon, economist and politician.  Bandini donated his 3000 volumes to Bibliotheca della Spaienza. Located here is one of the oldest banks of Italy.

We also came across the famous 'wolf suckling infants', a recurrring theme in Italy. 

According to the legend, Siena was founded by Remus’ sons, Senius and Aschius, who left Rome with the statue of the she-wolf, stolen from Apollo’s temple. The symbolic colors of the city derive as well from these two legendary founders--Aschius rode a black horse and Senius rode a white one.

It was indeed an interesting to walk .

Our guide toook us to the Piazza Del Campo, the venue of the famous horse race ( the Palio, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palio_di_Siena) in which the 17 districts participate. The ground is not perfectly circular; the Palazzo Pubblico which houses a museum (we did not enter) adjacent to the Torre del Mangia (bell tower), is typical of Siense medieval architectural style.

Il Palio Siena in progress from

Il Palio Siena

We cross the Piazza del Campo.. 

... and move towards another most famous structure, the Cathedral of Siena (aka DOM di Siena). We arrive at the Cathedral of Siena.

Photo: Alan Kehew from his Pinterest site

Photo: Alan Kehew from his Pinterest site

Photo: Alan Kehew from his Pinterest site

Mount of Wisdom

The Three Graces inside Piccolomini Library inside the Siena Cathedral

We completed our visit to the DOM by about 1:30 and we started looking for a place to eat lunch. We had about an hour to have lunch. After lunch we retraced the path to the bus that would take us to our hotel.

One has to be careful in restaurants. Often you will be paying for something you did not ask. Happened a couple of times and in Siena as well. The more crowded the restaurant is, more careful you should be.

We are waiting for few more people to return. 

Here is a short video clip.

Here is the complete video of the Powr Point:

Walking tour of Siena