While staying in Florence for about a week, we had time to take a day trip to the nearby town of Siena. This time, we took the bus since the train that runs from Florence to Siena did not stop in the historical center of town.

Founte Gaia – the main fountain within the Piazza del Campo

Siena is located about an hour and a half bus ride south from Florence. It’s a Tuscan town with medieval character to it. Upon arriving by bus, you walk straight into town and will be immediately greeted with one of Siena’s most spectacular sights, the Piazza del Campo.

One of the most massive piazza’s I’ve seen in Italy, it was really difficult to get a full frame shot in its entirety.

Arriving at mid-day, the sun was blaring right down on us

From the Piazza del Campo, we headed further into town to visit the main attraction of the city, Siena Cathedral or Duomo de Siena.

Our first experience with having to pay entrance admission to a religious church. Siena Cathedral has different ticket packages you can purchase in order to see the different areas within the church. It’s sad to see that Italy has now turned to capitalizing on its historical and religious monuments and really squeezing every dollar they can from tourists. What ever happen to showcasing and welcoming people from around the world to view the history they have to offer? Sorry for the rant but it really left a bad taste for Tiff and I towards the end of our tour of Italy.

The interior of the Cathedral is different compared to all the other churches we’ve seen. The black and white columns give it a unique look. I found out after that it was painted in this style to represent the coat of arms of the city.

More shots of the interior show the massive scale of the place and the amazing attention to detail of every square inch of the walls.

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Located within Siena Cathedral is The Piccolomini Library. A treasure within a treasure, the Piccolomini Library has beautiful paintings that line the walls and ceiling. In addition, huge books from the medieval era surround the entire room giving us a glimpse to how labor intensive book making was back in the days.

The last stop of Siena Cathedral was to the crypt. It didn’t seem like anything or anyone was buried down there. However there were really nice frescos of the life and death of Jesus.

On our way back to the bus station, we noticed a lot of brightly colored animals at every corner. It was a public art exhibit that Siena put on in association with a local artist.

Overall, our time in Siena was short and sweet. I wouldn’t recommend staying longer than a day trip as you might run out of things to do. It’s a very quiet town with a few highlights that were notable and definitely left a lasting impression of our time in the Tuscan region of Italy.