Tuscany 4. Siena and Volterra

flags in the colours of of the 17 Contrade,
Siena's town districts

 

Sienna was a bus ride from our hotel and here, tickets had to be bought in advance in a bar or somewhere similar and then validated on the bus. Alternatively, we could just tap in a credit card for the 1 Euro (85p) fare. Any inspector just checked that your card had been used, smiled and moved on. Some tourist unfortunates in front of us hadn’t done this, so their passports were out and I heard 35 Euros mentioned so I think the four of them had a 140 Euro bus ride. I confess to feeling a little uncharitably smug.

our first view of the Piazza del Campo

 

The last time Heather and I were here was probably in 1990 with a four year old Louise and a two year old Tim and they have changed a lot more than Siena in the intervening thirty five years. The streets are generally a little bit wider than many of the places we’ve been and the city is a big place. The big draw of course is the oddly, almost scallop shell shaped Piazza del Campo with the town hall and a huge campanile along the slightly straighter SE side. The big curve around the rest of the piazza has tall buildings almost all of which have a restaurant at ground level with wonderful views across this square which is definitely not a square. This is the site of the famous twice yearly bareback horse race, the Palio. Ten horsemen (men, this is Italy) representing 10 of the 17 Contrade of the city and decked out in their area colours try to complete three laps of the Campo. Apparently it’s all over in about ninety seconds and the winner is the first horse to cover the finish line. It can be riderless which is fair enough, after all the horse is doing most of the work.

Piazza del Campo - 3 photos

just imagine bare-back horse racing over that surface 

waiting for lunchtime

As you might imagine, Siena is very touristy with lots of alleys and all the usual little backstreets we’ve seen everywhere with a vast array of shops selling tourist tat. Siena just like most of the places we’ve visited here in Italy have been remarkably free of litter and it’s quite common to see street sweepers working. The old city was built on three hills, relatively flattish to the north but quite steeply down on the other sides. Some of the car parks and the station are lower than the main city attraction and there are town escalators to move people who want or need an easier passage to the top.

Santa Domenico

bear in mind that this is in the middle of
a top tourist spot and look at those prices

Apart from the Campo the only other big attraction here is the Cathedral, a magnificent building of white stone with bands of dark green blocks running in lines around it. It’s covered in statuary and had lines of tourists queuing to get in. If we’d decided to visit it, we would have had to queue to buy a ticket and then queue somewhere else to get in. So we didn’t. Heather and I wandered off to visit the Botanical gardens and were told that the person issuing tickets was not there. As we walked away, a woman came rushing up, looking very flustered and back from something that had caused her a later lunch than expected, so we got in eventually. Quite a delight really, the garden ran down a steep slope on zig-zag paths and it was almost more arboretum than garden but was a good green lung just outside the city walls.

the cathedral and a closer view of the west front

I’d been looking forward to seeing Siena again after so many years but in fact overall I was a bit disappointed with it compared to some of the other, smaller places we’ve visited. The Campo and Cathedral are jaw-dropping and definitely not to be missed but for anyone thinking of visiting, in my view don’t put aside too much time for Siena.

We’d considered renting another car to finish this trip but it was wildly expensive. It turned out to be less than half the price to get a taxi from Siena to Volterra and then another from Volterra to the station at Poggibonsi for the train to Florence. Roberto, our driver from Siena to Volterra was very good and spoke English well. He asked where we were from and I said that Heather and I were English and that Bonnie and Newt from from the USA. “I’ll charge you two a tariff of 35% extra” he told them. Then in a little over an hour we were at Volterra, another hilltop town with no entry for cars without a special permit.

looking SW across the edge of Volterra

an early morning SW view from Volterra's walls

There were extensive views from Volterra and inside the walls it was relatively level as we wheeled our bags for about five minutes to the top floor apartment with a roof terrace which we’d rented. As we shot out for a coffee, the forecasted rain started lightly, absolutely tipped it down while we had coffee followed by lunch and by the time we came out of the cafe it was over. We all liked Volterra, it was clearly tourist oriented by not quite so blatantly as some of the more popular places had been. It felt as if locals lived their lives here outside of the tourist industry. For instance, proper bread could be bought here. In fact we didn’t visit anything particular, just walked around, enjoying the ambiance. The town wall is complete, a Roman amphitheatre sits just outside the wall to the north and the ruins of an Etruscan city lie just to the west.

the remains of the old Roman Amphitheatre - as if you hadn't guessed

What seemed to be the local cottage industry was carving alabaster and we saw a couple of incredibly dusty workshops with everything covered in a thick film of white. I had to check just what Alabaster is and unhelpfully, Google tells me that archaeologists, geologists and the stone industry all have different definitions for it. Basically it’s whitish, soft for carving and can be made into an unlimited number of different objects, many of us wouldn’t want anywhere near our own homes. A lot of it would make lovely presents to take back for people you don’t like.

one of those Alabaster carving workshops

By chance, our son and daughter in law Tim and Kate with our grandson Felix were on holiday about an hour’s drive away and we were particularly pleased that they drove over so that we could all get together. It was good that they and Bonnie and Newt finally met up. Having the apartment in the centre of town was useful as a base especially as it had a selection of toys for Felix to play with while Tim and Kate could be released to have a walk around town just by themselves.

2 evening views, both at 19.26 at slightly different angles
from the same place looking S and SW

It did seem as if no time at all had passed before we climbed into another taxi heading to Poggibonsi station for the Florence train.

3 - 6 May 2025