Walking around the medieval streets of Siena

Have you ever pictured how would it be like to live in a medieval city? Feeling the spirit of a town in its old times? Well if you are one of these persons, you need to visit Siena. You will feel it and you will live it!

Lose yourself in the center of the town

To enjoy this town, you do not need a map. Forget about the itineraries! Lose yourself! This town is known by its medieval cityscape and I gotta say, it is amazing and it is well conserved.

Following the main and commercial street, you get to the most important and beautiful places. Besides all the stores, this is a very charming street and it becomes more and more pretty as soon as the visitors get closer to the center.

This medieval street encircles "The campo" which is a beautiful square where you can see my favourite monument there: The Torre del Mangia. This big tower is next to town hall or "palazzo comunale" and it is an old medieval tower amazingly tall, with around 88 meters tall! This is actually the main reason why you cannot get lost, because this monument can be seen from any point of the town.

The reason why I love this tower is because of the shadow it generates, which everybody appreciates in summer. Under it shadow, it is the best place to sit and relax, maybe even eat a gelato or a piece of pizza. You will see so many tourists doing it!

Walk every spot of the square Piazza del Campo and then, follow the signals that indicate the tourist spots and the best places to visit as the Duomo. I feel if I say it is amazing I will be redundant but this is because I haven't seen any ordinary cathedral or church in the whole Tuscany... The facades, just like the views when you access them are incredible.

Also the palaces are worth it: Palazzo Piccolomini, Palazzo Sansedoni, the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Basilica dell'Osservanza, Basilica di Santa Maria dei Servi or the Santuario e Casa di Santa Caterina. There are so many palaces and churches you need to find just walking.

Medieval traditions

All the citizens from Siena share a strong feeling of linkage with people of their "contrada" or district. This contrades were created with administrative and military purposes and they were named with as animals or representative symbols (bear, lion, wave, forest... ).

Nowadays, the members of each contrada still feel a great pride about it. It is a feeling that many people do not understand but they feel the emotion of belonging to their district as its life and therefore, they consider enemies all the members from other not allied contrades. There is still a big tension between almost all the districts, especially between the adversaries.

Il Palio

Il Palio is the most traditional "party" in Siena which is actually a competition between the contrades, almost as a horse race, but more special. It is celebrated on the second of July and on the 16th of August but I warn that it is dangerous.

I have not been in Siena during this celebration but the family I worked for, warned me about the danger. Anyways, I know about the pride the contrades share due to a showing one of them did while I was here. It was a show with the traditional costumes, the original music and the flags thrown into the air.

I bet if you go a weekend you can enjoy one of this shows in the medieval streets!

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