Way back in 2002, when this writer was just a college student, one of my closest friends spent a semester studying abroad in a small town in Italy I’d never heard of. The experience changed her life, and for more than twenty years, I’ve heard her wax poetically about Siena. So when I realized that Siena was only an hour and a half by train from my base in Florence, I decided to pay homage to my friend and take a day trip there.

As the crow flies, Siena is only about twenty miles south of Florence. But due to mountains and the necessity of running train routes for more than my own personal convenience, it is a slow ninety minutes on a regional train that runs hourly. Arriving at the station in Siena, I was greeted by a truly dizzying succession of escalators that connect the train station with a shopping mall and then the top of the hill. But oh what a view of the Tuscan countryside from the end!

From here, it is about a twenty minute walk down a mostly pedestrianized street (still watch for traffic; this is Italy after all) to the Piazza del Campo, the center of Siena. I took a bit longer, stopping to read some informative signage at the Porto Camollia, one of the city gates, and to marvel at the beautiful buildings that make up Siena’s UNESCO World Heritage-recognized old city center. (The theme of quality signage continued throughout my day, marking a huge contrast with a similar day trip to Pisa earlier in the month, which you can read about here.)

The Piazza del Campo is meant to resemble a shell, with stonework marking lines through the plaza from a central meeting point in front of the magnificent brick facade of the Palazzo Pubblico. It is a remarkable plaza in that, from here, basically every direction is uphill. Siena is actually a very hilly town, something that surprised me, and wandering can be steep. The piazza is best known for hosting the Palio de Siena, a twice-yearly horse race between Siena’s city districts. During my visit, the plaza was only filled with people.

The Palazzo Pubblico was built around the turn of the 14th century, between 1297 and 1304, with the stunning bell tower, the Torre del Mangia, added a few decades later in 1344. Admission fees vary wildly depending if one wishes to climb the tower or just enter the building, and I opted for the latter given both price, number of stairs, and the fact that no tower slots were available for several hours.

The interior of the Palazzo Pubblico, literally the public palace which was built to house the city-state’s council, is made up of several rooms with stunning frescoes. Each room is built around a theme, from one honoring the unification of Italy to one celebrating the life of a Siena-born pope.

It seems a bit odd to have such a remarkable building in a tiny city, where the population has rarely exceeded 50,000. But for centuries, from 1115 to 1555, Siena was an independent republic with a fairly storied history, including Europe’s oldest bank, the Monte dei Paschi, which has been in continual operation since 1472.

From the Piazza del Campo, I climbed a set of stairs and walked up a small but steep hill to see Siena’s other monumental building, its Duomo. Although I chose not to go inside – tickets are expensive and the line to purchase them was long – the outside of the building is a beautiful mixture of light and dark stone with pink accents, highlighted by a tall bell tower. Completed in 1348 after roughly 150 years of construction, Siena’s Duomo is another example of the wealth of such a small city due to its role in banking.

Having worked up an appetite with so much climbing, I made my way to Zest, a restaurant with tables outside on a steep street, for one of Siena’s local specialties: pasta with a ragu of wild boar. I sat under a small canopy, the breeze alternating it between sun and shade, staring at the Duomo’s baptistry – the tower itself was blocked by a nearby building – and watching people huff and puff up the street. It was a perfect lunch, in a perfect spot.

The walk back to the train station was a retracing of my steps, with a small break to swing into a bakery for a local treat to take home with me. Panforte is pretty much a fruit cake, but one of the best I’ve had. I was too full from pasta to eat it until I was back in Florence, but it was another pleasant surprise from Siena.

My day trip to Siena from Florence was wonderful. While I only spent about four and a half hours in the small city, I was truly able to understand why my friend loved her time here so much. The city is cute, has some cool things to see, and treats visitors to some wonderful food. If you have a spare day in Florence, it is a day you might consider.

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