We decided to take the train to Siena. My supplier in Turkey had told me it was a wonderful place to visit. Bev had also heard from many people what a wonderful place it was to visit. It is a walled Medieval city on top of a hill.
When we got off the train, we looked at the map in the tourist information office. Since it was Sunday, the office was closed. Per the map, we should take a winding road up the hill to the city. Again, we saw no tourists hearing the same way we were. View from the top of the hill looking out:
But after the twenty minute walk (as described in my book) we found the city. As we walked about, both of us found it difficult to understand what all the fuss was about.
We entered il Campo, (the square) we saw the civic building and tower (picture) We both thought the square in Florence was nicer.
We decided to see if we could climb the tower but the line was extremely long. So, we went in search of il duomo (the church). It is a beautiful church. The church was supposed to be built as the largest cathedral in Italy. But then the bubonic plague struck and killed off one third of the population of Siena. There was various works of art inside the church but we chose not to go in. We were pretty sure we weren't dressed appropriately per Italian church standards.
We made our way back to il campo. When we got there we saw the line had been cut in half, so we got in it. We asked the guy in front of us how the line had been moving and he indicated not at all. Since we had seen all we wanted to see in Siena, we decided to wait. We talked to Aldo as we waited. He was born in Italy of Italian parents but they moved to Mexico when he was young. He was an Italian instructor at University in Mexico. He was in Italy taking a six week course for instructors.Every weekend he picked a different place to travel to.
Eventually, the line moved. What we realized is the opened it up to several people at once. We climbed several flights of stairs to the ticket office. There we were told to put our bags in lockers and pay the 8 euro fee.
We began to ascend the stairs. The stairway was totally enclosed and no more than 40 inches wide. By the time I made it to the first level, I was panicked. I knew there were about 300+ stairs to ascend and there was no way i'd be able to make it all that way in the cave like stairs. Bev felt the same way. Because I had paid Aldo's fee for him, he was reluctant to go on without us because he wanted to pay me back (he needed change). We told him to go on and we would just rest for a bit and try to work up the nerve to go on. He reluctantly began to climb- then came back down to tell us the rest of the steps, while as narrow were open. So we began to climb. Luckily we didn't need to use this:
When we reached the top, we were rewarded with a spectacular view of Siena and beyond.
In Bev and my opinion, a trip to Siena, without a climb in the tower, is a waste of time. The view from the tower was breathtaking, though.
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