Welcome to Siena! - August 15, 2010

Sunday August 15, 2010

Senne's Summary: Travelled to Siena. We love it!

This morning we packed up and left our least favourite apartment so far. The sun is shining and we arrive at the bus station at 8:30 for our 9:10 bus. (No reservations, and we were not sure what the line would be like). We are one of the first ones to arrive (surprised?) and position ourselves so we can get on the bus first when it arrives. As time passes I have to use my teacher look on people who try to jockey for position in front of me. (I really scared one old Italian guy, he wandered right away). Then right before the bus arrives this lady and her two kids come and stand right in front of me. (I may have accidentally nudged her with my backpack…) Karma paid her back though because the bus pulled up further then we thought and I was at the front again 😀 Good thing we had the front seat and could look out the window, it was a bumpy ride! (Knock on wood, no motion sickness yet!)

The bus ride was actually quite beautiful, we had some lovely views of the Tuscan countryside.

When we arrived in Siena, Steve managed to use the directions from the website and took us straight to our B&B. Our room is small, but nice and clean. Two million times nicer than the last place (okay maybe that’s an exaggeration).

We could both tell already that we liked Siena a lot.

One of the gates into the Piazza del Campo (town square).

It’s an interesting small city because it looks like you’ve stepped into medieval times… it’s almost like the structure of it hasn’t really changed for the last 400 years.

We had a nice little walk around town and saw the Piazza del Campo where they were setting up for the Palio. The Palio is a bareback horse race they have been holding for the last 400 years.

Setting up the track for the Palio in the town square.

Each Contrada (district) of Siena enters their own horse and rider. It is amazing how much the locals are into this. Everyone was wearing a scarf around their neck showing their Contrada’s symbol (mostly animals), and there were flags on many buildings.

Flags showing support for their contrada

Even the lights on the side of the buildings were decorated with the contrada’s colours. The communities were also setting up tables in the streets for their evening community dinner.

The streets are packed with people!

We, of course, found a nice little gelato shop by the Piazza del Campo. I enjoyed Rocher and Steve had a dark chocolate and coconut (his favourite so far). Then we continued on with our "preview walk of Siena".

Gelato anyone?