Siena surroundings Top 10

The 15 towers of San Gimignano looks like a mirage in Siena countryside. They emerge in the landscape offering the same view that could had a medieval traveller, with one difference, in the Middle age the towers were 72. You can enter in the town passing through one of the two doors and you are immediately catapulted in a Medieval atmosphere, in spite of all the tourist that walk into the village. One principal road go up in direction of the place of San Gimignano and then go back down, the ancient medievals workshops has been substituted by the more modern souvenirs shops. That’s the price we must pay to the modernity… but we are at once rewarded for it looking at the wonderful frescos of the Cathedral and of Sant Agostino Church, without forget the civic museum of the town hall. An interesting break would be the Medieval torture museum for the ones who wants to discover the human ability to invent sufferance and death methods.

The Pope Pius II wanted Leon Battista Alberti to build this town, it rose on a more ancient village called Corsignano. Pienza was destined to represent all the renaissance ideas of town, that’s why it is called “the ideal city” or the “utopian town”. It was built in three years, it is an example of beauty and harmony and it is symbol of the will of Pius II to build a town destined to be different and more beautiful of Siena, from which him and his family were chased away. As in the greatest part of this kind of medieval villages the town has one big principal street (Corso Rossellino) that cross all the town and arrives in the big place. In Pienza there’s Pius II Place with its particular trapezoidal place and the characteristic herringbone paving. In a few meters there are placed side by side the Cathedral, Piccolomini’s Palace and the Town Hall, at the centre of the place there’s a well. The three monuments deserve a visit and all along the street you’ll be tempted by all the typical product, like the pecorino of Pienza, sell in the workshops.

The best way to have a prefect glance of Monteriggioni is to have a walk on its old medieval walls. The walls are perfectly visible while arriving in the town and they are in a perfect state of preservation. Nothing has changed from to the past to nowadays, the sensation is the same that maybe proved Dante when he saw for the first time Monteriggione. He remained so impressed that he names this walls in the “Comedy” in the Canto XXXI of the Hell, when he wrote: “As with circling round/Of turrets, Montereggion crowns his walls;” He use the majesty of this town to describe the huge giants jammed into the chasm of Malebolge. They are still intact the 14 towers built to protect the city. Monteriggione is on a territory which was for centuries contested between Florence and Siena. Today this town only welcomes tourists, artists and writers which are attracted by the calm atmosphere that can be breathe in Piazza Roma (the principal place of the village) where the church of the assumption gave onto and where you can find a lot of typical restaurants.

Montepulciano repeats the scenography of all the others town of Siena surroundings: you enter from the principal door of the city and begin a time voyage between Middle age and Renaissance which takes end at the top of the town in Piazza Grande. The place is the heart of Montepulciano where tourists and poliziani (this is the name of Montepulciano’s dwellers) meet each others. The four sides of the square present each one a beautiful palace: the Town hall, which is dated around 1300 and reminds in its forms the Palazzo della Signoria in Florence; the Contucci Palace and the Nobili-Tarugi that is faced with travertine. The nearby Palace is named Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo and in front of the latter there’s the well dei Grifi e dei Leoni with its beautiful Renaissance design. In the Cathedral you could admire the tryptic which represent the Assumption painted by Taddeo di Bartolo and the Virgin with the Baby painted by Sano di Pietro. In the way that crosses the square there are many streets with nobility palaces and full of workshops that sells typical wines as the noble of Montepulciano and local gastronomical products.

The San Galgano Monastery is a spectacle that leaves breathless. We know, it is said about a lot of monuments, but for San Galgano is more true than others. Try to imagine a Basilica with Latin cross plan, three naves, 72 meters in length and 21 meters wide, with the intact external walls but… without roof, so this Abbey, that was built in the XII century, is still there in spite of the time passes but it has lost its cover. As we said it was built in 1218, nut during the XIV century it reached its moment splendour thanks to the immunity and the royal privilege. After the richness the decadence came, and the Abbey was abandoned, even if it remains majestic. Very near, on the hill of Montesiepi, there’s the sword in the stone knocked in by Galgano Guidotti, a violent and arrogant nobleman who had a suddenly religious conversion and left his sword there as a symbolic renounce to the violence and to create a cross to pray. There are a lot of analogies between San Galgano and Gawain (Gauen), one of King Arthur’s knights. Maybe San Galgano was one of the knights… and maybe this is the mythic sword in the stone…

We’re not exaggerating if we say that Bagno Vignoni has one of the most charming places of the world: which other city of the world can boast about a square filled of thermal water that sprout at the temperature of 52°C? The town clustered around a big pool filled with hot spring water. The village is quite small, you can visit it in a few minutes and then dedicate yourself to the favourite activity of the tourists that go to Bagno Vignoni: immerse hands and feet in the streams of hot water that start from the square and cross all the town. This streams after crossing the town fall from the hill. Formerly this little rivers feed the mills of Bagno Vignoni (today the mills has been renovated and they can be visited) but today they are the best way to relax after a day passed visiting all the villages and the hills of Siena surroundings. For the ones who prefer an extended rest at the end of the town there’s a spring pool in which you can have a bath, you’ll emerge like a new you. It’s no accident that Lorenzo the Magnificent and Saint Catherine of Siena used to retire here, therefore the loggia that looks on the square is dedicated to Saint Catherine.

Too much busy running in direction of the more known towns of the Siena countryside a lot of people pass without stopping in Colle Val D’Elsa, thinking that there isn’t nothing of interesting to see. Well, They’re wrong and it’s a shame don’t stop to see this village. Colle Val D’Elsa is a real treasure and hides many curiosities and corners that should not be miss. First of all it’s the “town of the crystal”, a centuries-old tradition of handmade crystal (nowadays industrial too) brought this precious material in all the world. The 85% of Italy and the 15% of the world crystal come from here. The shop windows of the artisans are an irresistible temptation for the one who wants to bring home a beautiful and unique (and expensive too…) souvenir, while for the ones who wants to know more about the crystal there’s a museum it dedicated (Museo del Cristallo). While you are having shopping or while you are walking in the town you can admire the ancient village and the castle, to reach the latter you have to pass a bridge called “Ponte del Campana”, one of the places more suggestive of Colle Val D’Elsa. Starting from here you are in the ancient town where there are the Palazzo del Capitano (XVI century), Palazzo Buonaccorsi (XV century), Palazzo Giusti (XV-XVI century) and the house-tower where the famous architect Arnolfo di Cambio was born (XII century).

Montalcino presents itself from the top of the hill where it dominate the valleys below, the rivers Asso and Ombrone valleys, with its beautiful XII century fortress. Its history saw an alternation of struggle periods with peace times, but the fortune of this town is due to the area where it rise, a prestigious zone of the grapevine cultivation. Therefore thanks to its wines like the Rosso of Montalcino, the Sant’Antimo and the celebrated Brunello of Montalcino, this town is known all over the world.
The village is still surrounded by the walls of the XIII century and walking through its streets you could admire, among its workshops and little cafés, the town hall and the bishop palace, seats of Montalcino’s museums where you can see important works of Siena’s artists from the XII to the XIX century, and more there are the churches of Sant’Agostino, Sant’Egidio and San Fracesco. If you move a little outside the town there’s Castelnuovo dell’Abbate where you can find the Abbey of Sant’Antimo, with its magical atmosphere, this abbey was founded by Charlemagne in 781.

Chiusi descends from an ancient Etruscan city named Chamars that under the reign of the king Porsenna, between the VII and the VI century b. C., reached its moment of maximum splendour. Its huge historical and cultural patrimony make this town an archaeological site of great importance. Entering from the principal door of the city you’ll be in via Porsenna where you can see Medieval and Renaissance buildings. This street arrives in Piazza del Duomo, in which underneath there are the ruins of an ancient Etruscan palace, maybe king Porsenna’s palace. In the square you can admire the Episcopal Palace, the bell tower and the Cathedral with the nearby Museum in which there are guarded important works coming from the Cathedral and the diocese. Just outside the church there’s the civic museum where Greek, Latin and Etruscan potteries are conserved. Since the XVII century the town began to search the traces of its glorious past.
Beside that historical and cultural characteristic if you go north-east of the town you’ll find two lakes: Chiusi and Montepulciano, that can be good destination if you love the sports and the gastronomical tours.

Founded in 1310 by San Bernardo Tolomei, who was exponent of one of the most powerful families of Siena and a strict observer of the Benedictine rule (ora et labora – pray and work), Monte Oliveto Abbey rises on a hill and it’s defended on three sides by insurmountable cliffs. Nowadays the Abbey is the seat of the Benedictine congregation and houses the Institute of books restoration. Crossing the big cloister, fulcrum of all the building which is frescoed with the “San Benedetto’s stories”, you arrive in the church built in XV century but then renovated with baroques forms. Among the great number of works here contained there’s a wooden choir made by Frate Giovanni da Verona. In the middle cloister there’s the beautiful fresco representing the Coronation of the Virgin by Sodoma and The deposition by an unknown artist. Then you’ll enter in the monastic library and in the pharmacy in which are conserved numerous pots of the XVII century and numerous medical herbs.