Exploring Siena & Monteriggioni

Day Trip to Siena from Florence

Once we were able to get clear of the Florence City traffic, we headed straight south on the Raccordo Autostradale Firenze for approximately 80 kilometers (from Porta Romano near our condo rental). Our primary concern was to get to Siena "early enough" to find a parking place, as we knew that there would be a very large crowd for the horse race.

Siena is a typical Italian city, where a new more modern city grew up and surrounded the older part of the city. Since the Palio di Siena horse race is held in the center plaza ('Piazza del Campo') of the older area of Siena, our challenge was to locate a parking place somewhere near enough to that area to allow us to walk to it.

Even though we had arrived early in the morning, people were already starting to gather. The actual arena is in the interior of the city, a very large court yard, circular in layout and they have stadium seating and standing-only areas marked off (all of which were long since reserved and expensive).

After we discussed what we should do, and pondered the fact that since the horse race was not going to take place until late afternoon, and we had no place to sit, and standing room only was already filling up even at that early hour of the day. So we came to the conclusion that we should not spend an entire day waiting and that we should head out for the east coast of Italy.

We decided to do a bit of exploring as we made our way back to our rental car.

Porta Camollìa is one of the northern portals in the medieval walls of Siena. It is located on via Camollia and opens inside the city into the Contrada of Istrice. It consists of three arches; the inner arch is surmounted by a circular marble bas-relief with the Roman Catholic IHS Christogram inside a sun symbol (San Bernardino Christogram). The outer facade has the Medici heraldic shield with a stone arch added in 1604 by Alessandro Casolani and decorated by Domenico Cafaggi. The inscription was placed to record the entry of Ferdinand I de' Medici into Siena, and states Cor magis tibi sena pandit (Siena shows a heart that is bigger than this gate). The two central figures hold the Medici coat of arms.

Siena Cathedral is a medieval church in Siena, Italy, dedicated from its earliest days as a Roman Catholic Marian church, and now dedicated to the Assumption of Mary. It was the episcopal seat of the Diocese of Siena, and from the 15th century that of the Archdiocese of Siena. It is now the seat of the Archdiocese of Siena-Colle di Val d'Elsa-Montalcino.

Since the horse race was still many hours later that day, we decided that we were not going to wait, so we researched our maps and decided to drive over to the coastal area of Italy near Livorno. This was our final view of the Piazza as we walked back to our rental car.

The kids had a great time investigating various displays in the museum, because the Museum allows handling and wearing some weapons and parts of armor, located in special areas . Some explanatory panels and an easy multilingual audio guide accompany the visitor on this short but intense immersion in history.

The really interesting thing about this museum and their collection of armor, was that we were allowed to try various pieces on, and to interact with all of the displays. Very cool, and something that you just do not see in an American Museum.

I had just told the kids that medieval warriors & soldiers had to have a "fierce appearance" in order to intimidate the opposition! So when mom wanted to get a picture of them in this area of the museum, they struck their "fierce warrior" pose.

The Castello was built by the people of Siena at the beginning of the 13th century, to watch over the valleys extending towards their rival town, Florence, in 1554 the Monteriggioni Castle was conquered by the Florentine Medici family. After so many wars, the castle changed hands not after a battle, but because of treason by a false ally, Bernardino Zeti.

The entire castle structure and surrounding buildings looked as though they had been there for a seriously long time and looked every bit the part of a castle or fortified structure. Fortunately for us, it also had an espresso bar and a cold drinks machine.

Our next stop on the way to Livorno, would be Castel San Gimignano. Astute map reading and investigative use of our Italy guidebook led us to this decision.

• Just Traveling Thru European Travel Tips
• Just Traveling Thru Travel Planning Tips
• Where to stay in Siena on the 'Culture Trip' site
• Google Search Results List for "Restaurants in Siena"
• Google Search Results List for "Accommodations in Siena"
• Things to do and see in Siena on 'The Crazy Tourist' site
• One Day in Siena on the 'Discover Tuscany' Site
• Top Things to do in Siena on the 'Lonely Planet' Site
• Best Siena Tours & Things to do on the "Get Your Guide" Site
• Visit our Youtube Channel
• Siena Italy Wikipedia Article:
• Siena Italy Google Images Set:
• Our Siena Italy Image Gallery:
• Google Reviews for Siena, Italy