I want to start by saying that Sienna is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever been to. It has history, charm, character, and tons of other things that you would enjoy seeing if you visited. But I want to give you a serious warning if you do intend to visit. It is the most confusing of places I've ever visited when you are trying to get around. Someone once described the streets of Sienna to me in this way. It's as if someone took a pot of boiled spaghetti noodles, threw them up in the air and however they landed on the floor it was decided that, that would be the street plan for Sienna.
https://www.italyguides.it/en/tuscany/siena/interactive-map-of-siena#43.3184914/11.3362211/17/cats/100
You can get lost within the first 5 minutes of entering Sienna and once you do you'll stay lost unless you get the help of someone who lives there. You can wander around for the rest of your day without ever knowing where you are or how to get to where you want to go.
Now upon saying that, roaming around Sienna with no idea where you are is fun as long as you have no set agenda and time table. Around every corner is something worth seeing,
there are always marvelous gelato shops if you run out of energy,
and all roads eventually lead to Piazza Del Campo, even if they don't seem like roads we are used to in North America.
the center of town, the main place to eat, shop, see or be seen.
We had the most marvelous lunch on the Piazza, unbelievable pizza by the slice,as well as wine served by the glass that we just took out to the center of the plaza, sat down on the cobblestones and ate and drank while watching children and adults play and sight see.
Now I consider myself someone who can navigate around anywhere. Most times I have an internal compass that guides me around and I almost never feel lost, so it is with extreme reluctance and more than a little frustration that I admit, I was hopelessly lost in Sienna.
I was armed with a street map and when Joani told me she thought it was time to head back to our hotel, I also felt a little tired and agreed so started trying to find our way back to the bus stop that would take us back to our hotel.
I referred to the map, got my bearings, turned several corners and got us more lost! Undaunted, I sat down on a bench, again opened up the map, studied it intently, told Joani, "okay, I'm good" and preceded to get us even more lost!!. After several more attempts, Joani suggested we ask someone for help. A direct stab at my male pride. "No dear, I can do this, I think I now know where we are, and it's just around a couple of more corners." After more than an hour or two of trying to find ourselves, Joani, who by this time was getting extremely hungry finally found a young university student who seemed to enjoy trying out her command of the English language, was only too happy to guide us out.
I followed behind very disgruntled. " I could have found the way out" Joani had a lovely chat with this pleasant { smartypants } girl. I considered veering off and trying to find my own way but the thought of having Gelato for supper, and maybe even next mornings breakfast was a little daunting. I still think, given a little more time ( 2 or 3 days) I could have found our way out of the Maze.
Sienna was lovely but a little hard on my Ego.
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