Siena, Italy

Don’t miss it on your next trip

Siena Torre del Mangia building built in 1348. Photo credit: Author

We escaped to Italy three years ago on a magical trip. We went to Venice first and I wrote about that part of our trip here, https://medium.com/weeds-wildflowers/venice-is-sinking-38e66b6e97f6 and Siena was our second stop.

The adventure towards Siena began when we picked up our rental car in Venice. Driving in a foreign country is not for the faint of heart, but my partner was up to the challenge. We had rented a very small car; we were advised to do so for the part of our trip where we were going to the Amalfi Coast. Our host there had suggested that the roads were very narrow and the smallest car possible would make life easier. She was right, but that story is for another day.

We drove through these walls coming from the other direction; that was not permitted. Leaving was fine. But we had already been caught. Photo credit: Author

Anyway, our car was a perfect size for the two of us, and off we went. We used some kind of map app on my phone to direct us and it was helpful but not perfect. At one point we came upon a place where traffic was redirected due to an accident and the phone did not seem to know what to do. We did a few circles before we got back on track.

We were driving from Venice to just near Siena which was expected to take about 3.5 hours. It took at least an…