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Siena trip planner
A vacation guide to the gorgeous, Gothic Tuscan hilltown of Siena
www.terresiena.it
Tours to Siena from Florence
• Siena and San Gimignano Day Trip from Florence
• Siena and San Gimignano Small Group Day Trip from Florence
• Context: Siena Half-Day Walk
• Private Tour: Siena and San Gimignano
Where to stay
Hotel Cannon d'Oro
Hotel Antica Torre
Hotel Duomo
Hotel Chiusarelli
» More hotels in Siena (from €64)
» B&Bs in Siena (from €45)
» Apartments in Siena (from €50)
» Agriturismi near Siena (from €75)
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TOURS FROM OUR TRUSTED PARTNERS that include Siena
• Intrepid: Tuscan Express (7 days)
• G Adventures: The Taste of Tuscany (8 days)
• iExplore: Magical Tuscany & Portofino Peninsula (10 days)
• iExplore: Cycle Through Siena & Chianti (8 days)
• iExplore: Tuscan Trails (self guided) (8 days)
• iExplore: Chianti: Walking & Wine (8 days)
• iExplore: Colors of Tuscany (8 days)
• G Adventures: Ultimate Italy (13 days)
• G Adventures: Italy Culture and History Explored (9 days)
• iExplore: Italy Experience (9 days)
• iExplore: Splendors of Italy & Southern France (16 days)
Piazza del Campo in Siena. (Photo by Zyance)Siena Guide
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Planning FAQ
Siena is a city in hilltown clothing.
Its Gothic brick palazzi and marble Baroque church facades are splayed along three ridge tops centered along a trio of (usually) car-free boulevards: shopping drag Via Banchi di Sopra, touristy Via di Città, and quiet Via Banchi di Sotto.
The three meet just outside Siena's lovely main square, 
Piazza del Campo —often called just Il Campo—a sloping scallop shell of herringbone brick where people picnic, nap, and celebrate soccer victories.
The Campo and Palazzo Pubblico
Anchoring the base of the Campo is the crenellated 13th century town hall, the Palazzo Pubblico/Museo Civico (tel. +39-0577-292-223; www.comune.siena.it) is well worth the admission to admire its public spaces frescoed with Sienese Gothic masterpieces.
These include Simone Martini's courtly early Maestà (Madonna in Majesty) and a portrait of the knight Guidoriccio riding along in a richly patterned cloak (a mark of Sienese Gothic art).
The neighboring room—the meeting chamber for the old ruling Council of Nine—is decorated with the amazing Allegory of Good and Bad Government and its Effects on the Town And Countryside by Ambrogio Lorenzetti.
This cycle of frescoes is packed with scenes of 14th century daily life and is counted as perhaps the most important secular painting from medieval Europe. Its goal is to remind the Council of Nine of the effects their government will have.
Either they will enjoy a prosperous Siena, where men busily raise new buildings (proof that scaffolding rises eternal in Italy), shop keeps sell their wares, teachers instruct their students, noble ladies dance in the streets, and peasants happily toil away in the surrounding fields passed by gentlemen returning on horseback from falcon hunting.
Bad government will result in a blasted and destroyed city, passersby being crushed by crumbling buildings, the once-lush countryside ravished by famine and fire. (Perhaps fittingly, the frescoes forming this "bad government" side of the story are faded, cracked, and withered by age and mold.)
The Siena cathedral & its museum
The bulky, zebra-striped Gothic Duomo (or Cattedrale) is free except August 23 to October 2, when the stunning patchwork of inlaid and etched marble panels carpeting the floor are uncovered. Otherwise, a few panels are always left visible, and most of the Cathedral is free (save the Libreria Piccolomini, lushly frescoed by Pinturicchio and his young assistant Raphael). At the Duomo's crossing are a chapel by baroque master Bernini and a densely-carved pulpit by Gothic geniuses Nicola and Giovanni Pisano.
The Museo dell'Opera Metropolitana (tel. +39- 0577-283-048; www.operaduomo.siena.it) is installed in the thick wall of what was to have been the nave of a massively expanded cathedral (the existing cathedral would have become merely the transept of the gargantuan new church), an ambitious project halted when the Black Death claimed three-quarters of the population. In addition to a Madonna and Child tondo by Donatello and Duccio's glittering Gothic Maestà altarpiece of 1311—the first masterpiece of the Sienese School—the museum gives access to a narrow terrace (atop what would have been the entrance wall of the new cathedral) with a sweeping panorama of the city and countryside.
St. Catherine's house & remains
The Casa di Santa Caterina (tel. +39-0577-280-801) is a quiet, cloistered church and memorial of baroque paintings built around the birthplace of medieval mystic and stateswoman St. Catharine of Siena, Italy’s patron saint and first female Doctor of the Church. Her letters and 1378 ambassadorship to Gregory XII in Avignon were crucial in convincing him to return the papacy from France to Rome.
Just above, the gargantuan brick church of San Domenico preserves her shriveled head and thumb as relics in a chapel swathed in Renaissance frescoes by Sodoma and Francesco Vanni.
The Italian wine "museum" (read: "tasting gallery")
The brick vaults under the massive 16th century Medici fortress, once a symbol of Florence's dominance, now host the Enoteca Italian Permanente, a sort of national wine museum with tiny tables both under the echoing vaults and outside where you can sample the best of Italy's wine by the glass—and buy a bottle or two of your favorites, of course.
The Siena passeggiata
Stroll with the locals during Siena's popular evening passeggiata, which starts around 4:30pm. It concentrates on Via di Città and the southern arm of Via Banchi di Sopra, but I recommend heading up to the northernmost tip of Via Banchi di Sopra (it changes names a few times) to the Porta Camollia gate to the city.
From there, you can walk the entire main ridge upon which Siena is built, back down the main drag, joining the passeggiata crowds for a Campari at the Caffé Nannini (Via Banchi di Sopra 22-24; www.grupponannini.it).
Continue down Via Banchi di Sotto, dogleg right at Via S. Girolamo, then left up Via dei Servi to the rough brick façade of Santa Maria dei Servi church.
From the grassy square out front, the views spill across a verdant valley to a sunset over the cathedral on the opposite ridge.
Planning a trip to Siena
- Planning your day: Siena deserves a good, long full day. In fact, its riches of sights really make it hard to do in a single day, so you're better off spending the night here—that way, you can squeeze in some sightseeing on the first afternoon, and some more on the second morning. Couple that fact with Siena's central location in Tuscany, and it makes a lot of sense for Siena to be one of the overnight stops on your tour of Tuscan hilltowns.
- Tourism information in Siena: The Siena tourist office is at Piazza del Campo 1 (tel. +39-0577-280-551; www.terresiena.it).
- Admission to sights—Cumulative tickets: The city offers a multitude of cumulative tickets for various grab-bags of sights around town. For more information, visit www.terresiena.it.
- Opening hours for the sights around town are insanely complicated. You can find updated hours under the "Il Turista" section of www.comune.siena.it.
- How to get to Siena: For once, taking a bus from Florence makes more sense, as they tend to be more frequent, slightly faster (75 min. on the rapide/express; 95 min. on the diretto/direct), and they stop up in town—as opposed to the Siena train station, which is down in the valley. There are also a half dozen daily buses from Rome’s Tiburtina station. Siena's bus station is on Via Tozzi, near the north end of town just to the east of the stadium (the ticket office is in an underground passage below La Lizza, the northern extension of Via Tozzi, tel. 0577-204-246, www.sitabus.it and www.trainspa.it).
- If you do arrive by train: Siena's train station is two miles outside town, requiring a city bus to run you up to the center (about 5 min.). There are hourly trains direct from Florence (88 min.). There are trains once or twice and hour from Rome (3–4 hrs.), though they always require a train change either at Chiusi/Chianciano Terme or Grosseto.
- Book a tour: Prefer to leave the driving and arrangements to someone else? Take a tour of Siena that leaves from Florence with our partners at Viator.com.
• Siena and San Gimignano Small Group Day Trip from Florence (8 hrs)
• Private Tour: Siena and San Gimignano (8.5 hrs)
• Siena and San Gimignano Day Trip from Florence (8.5 hrs)
• Tuscany in One Day Sightseeing Tour (12 hrs)
• 5-Day Best of Italy Trip (5 days/4 nights out of Rome; also hits Florence, Venice, Assisi, Bologna, Montepulciano, and Padua) - Near Siena: San Gimignano (45–60 min.); Florence (75 min. by bus; 88 min. by train).
- Music in Siena: Siena's Academia Musicale Chigiana (Via di Città 89; tel. +39-0577-22-091, www.chigiana.it) puts on concerts in various venues around town, no spaces more evocative than the rococo stuccoed indoor theater and medieval open courtyard at their headquarters, the 14th century Palazzo Chigi-Saracini.
The medieval hospital complex of Santa Maria della Scala (Piazza del Duomo; tel. +39-0577-224-811) also hosts many intimate concerts, recitals, and academic conferences.
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This material was last updated February 2011. All information was accurate at the time.
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