From La Spezia to Pisa to Siena

My second full day in Italy was going to be a busy one as I was going to travel from La Spezia to Pisa and then onwards to Florence, and finally Siena, before heading back to Florence again.

After breakfast, I headed to the train station to take a train to Pisa.  It must be pretty common for people to travel through Pisa for the day, as there are several signs within the train station for baggage storage (deposito bagagli).  The cost was 4€ for the first 12 hours. This cool map was on the wall of the baggage storage area.

It is about a 25 minute walk from Pisa Centrale to the Field of Miracles.  If you exit out of the main entrance and head straight (North), you will eventually find it.  Along the way, you will cross a plaza and the Arno River, which is about half way between the station and the Field of Miracles.

I stopped for an early lunch at a little sandwich place called Il Crudo Panineria.  I had read rave reviews online and the owner behind the counter highly recommended an eggplant and ham sandwich which I did enjoy.  The sandwich was huge and very delicious, and well worth the 5€.

After lunch, I continued walking towards the Field of Miracles.  I approached from the east end, so the first thing I saw was the Leaning Tower.  It definitely leaned a lot more than I expected.

I had pre-purchased tickets to climb the tower.  I had read that it wasn’t always possible to purchase tickets upon arrival for the time you wanted.  In reality, I arrived at 11:45am and saw that they were selling tickets for 12:30pm, which is a much shorter wait than I expected.  However, I did travel in shoulder season (May).  If you visit in the summer months, I would definitely recommend pre-purchasing the tickets on the official Pisa Ticket Office website.   

With the exception of your camera, you are not permitted to carry anything up the tower.  There is a locker room right next to the ticket office and they recommend that you check your belongings in 30 minutes prior to your climb.  I had a very small 4 inch x 4 inch bag with me and they wouldn’t even allow me to bring that up.

The times to climb the tower are set at 15 minute increments.  You are allowed 30 minutes inside the tower, although I really don’t know how they would keep track of that. 

Even with the first few steps of the climb, I could already feel the tilt. The stairway was (expectedly) narrow and slanted, so this definitely is not suitable for the faint of heart.  Keep in mind that it’s the only way up and down so if you run into people coming down as you’re going up, it is a really tight squeeze.

The view from the top included the adjacent baptistery and cathedral.

After the Leaning Tower, I continued over to the baptistery and once inside you could climb about 70 steps to get to the top for a great view of the Cathedral. 

It was a very hot afternoon and there were tons of people all around.  In fact, there were a few protests going on at the Field of Miracles as there were quite a few big gatherings of people holding all sorts of signs. 

Pisa was a neat little stop to spend a couple of hours.  Now that I’ve climbed the Leaning Tower though, I don’t know if I’d go back again, since there is just so much more to see elsewhere.

From Pisa, I continued on towards Florence and once I was able to drop off my bags at the B&B I was staying at, I made my way to the bus station to catch a 4:30pm express bus from the Florence bus station to Siena.  The bus ride took an hour and a half and I arrived into Siena just as most of the sites were closing.  I did get a chance to see the Siena Cathedral from the outside though.  I was a bit disappointed, as I had seen some pictures of the gothic style cathedral online and really wanted to see it in person.

 

I met up with an old friend at the main square of Siena – the Piazza Del Campo.  She told me that this is the sight of the annual Palio di Siena, the famous Siena horse race.  I was quite surprised to learn this as I didn’t think the Piazza was large enough to hold a horse race.

Another thing that struck me as being strange is that people were sitting and lying down on the pavement in this square.  I’d understand if there was grass, but how comfortable could it be to lie there on the pavement?

Siena is such a charming little city.  The old streets made it feel like I was in an ancient town.  It wasn’t as crowded with tourists as Florence, which meant that we could freely stroll down the narrow streets without worrying about pick pockets or bumping into people.  The whole atmosphere of the town really made me feel like I was in a movie setting.

After walking around a bit, we found a restaurant that served Pici, a local Siena specialty.  It is one of Siena’s most famous pastas, and I knew I definitely wanted to try it.  It wasn’t all that different from spaghetti, just a bit thicker.  I quite enjoyed the Pici al Ragu I ordered.

We had to rush a bit as the last bus back to Florence was at 8:45pm and I definitely couldn’t miss this.  I ended up taking the regular bus instead of the express bus, but in reality, it only took 15 minutes longer, so it wasn’t an issue at all.