Siena Miller Time

Trip Start May 24, 2008

Trip End Dec 21, 2008

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Flag of Italy Siena, Tuscany, Italy
Sunday, June 15, 2008

Arrived in Siena from Rome on Sunday afternoon. We got the Italian Eurostar from Rome which ended up getting into Florence where we had to change about 1 hour late. We would soon learn that it is not normal for Italian trains to run on time. So we left Rome at 10am and arrived at the hotel in Siena at about 4pm. A long day for such a short distance. Went for a wander around the town - a pretty cool place, amazingly well preserved and it was nice to get to somewhere a bit quieter than Rome.

Siena is divided into 17 contradas which are different areas of the city each with their own symbol. When we were walking around on the Sunday afternoon we saw one of the contradas (with the symbol of the tortoise) marching around the street in traditional costume, banging drums and waving the traditional banners. Amazing.

On Monday we walked most of the city and tried to find the 17 different plaques of the contradas. It's such a great place to walk around but around the central Piazza del Campo it is so busy during the day. I think a lot of tour buses do the day trip from Florence as it is much quieter in the evening when all the 'tourists' have left. Twice a year in the Piazza del Campo they run a horse race called Il Palio. If you saw the piazza you wouldn't believe it's true. We actually went and saw a 20 minute documentary on the race to get an idea of what it would be like - they go nuts for it. There were a bunch of American students seeing the documentary at the same time and while we were all waiting they actually bought and ate popcorn from a machine that looked like the popcorn had been sitting there for at least 5 years. Gross.

On Tuesday we decided to climb the 400 stairs to the top of the tower in the Piazza del Campo. I managed to hit my head at the first opportunity but still managed to get to the top with my minor concussion. An amazing view out over Siena from the top. We managed to find a restaurant for dinner on Tuesday night that didn't actually want to charge us 15% service just for sitting down. Good food too.

So far Siena has had the best gelato of the trip and such value for money - they don't hold back on loading it up.

Enough about food. Next stop.... Lucca.