notepad useful numbers WHAT TO EAT AND DRINK TOURIST INFORMATION APT SIENA Tel. 0577.280551 Urban trekking Panforte, Ricciarelli, local cinta pork salami, pecorino cheese, TOUR GUIDE ASSOCIATION OF THE CITY AND PROVINCE OF SIENA Tel. 0577.43273 Urban Vernaccia di San Gimignano, Chianti, Chianti Classico, TAXI - ACTIVE 24 HOURS A DAY - Tel. 0577.49222 Between art Brunello di Montalcino, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano EMERGENCY ROOM POLICLINICO LE SCOTTE Tel. 0577.585807-0577.585809 trekking and nature WHAT TO BUY in Siena Local handicrafts air check WHAT TO SEE Air check is an “environmental traffic light” A Urban trekking is a sport Cathedral that measures the level of air quality. journey among golden paintings and green Museo dell’Opera del Duomo for all. Following an The polluting agents monitored by it are carbon dioxide, countryside, in the city where exquisite Santa Maria della Scala museum complex ozone, and noise. The green light means excellent air masterpieces of the past unite with the itinerary on foot through hilly city streets does not Fonte delle Monache quality, yellow indicates fair quality, and red indicates a magnificent landscapes of the present. require any special training. It is a perfect way of Pinacoteca Nazionale heavily polluted atmosphere. toning up the mind and body for everyone who is Church of Sant’Agostino Accademia dei Fisiocritici forced to live in cramped spaces and feels the need IN COOPERATION WITH Botanical Garden AUTOMOBILE CLUB D'ITALIA to liberate pent-up energies. Ideal also for children, Orti dei Tolomei A1 Florence H urban trekking is a new and entertaining way to get Palazzo Pubblico - Civic Museum P EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICE P to know the history and artistic beauty of a city Torre del Mangia PORTA CAMOLLIA TRAIN STATION DON’T MISS where it is still possible to walk around easily and P DURATION: half-day Feast of Saint Joseph (19 March) breathe clean air. n PORTA OVILE LENGTH: 7 km (4,37 miles) Palio of the Madonna of Provenzano (2 July) P we DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY: steep hilly streets, Palio of Our Lady of the Assumption (16 August) P Arezzo-Rome A1 s MILAN some steps, footpaths VENICE Movies in the “Orti dei Tolomei” SUGGESTED DRESS AND EQUIPMENT: comfortable rubber-soled P PORTA PISPINI FLORENCE SIENA (August) Sponsored by the Monte dei Paschi Foundation shoes, binoculars PORTA FONTEBRANDA P } ROME “Terra di Siena” Film Festival AND ELISA VENTURINI LATINI BARBARA LENSINI - TEXTS BY 2003 - PHOTO MILC CHARACTERISTIC ELEMENTS: alleys, palaces, towers, fountains, NAPLES city gates, churches, arches, green space, views (September) PORTA LATERINA P PORTA ROMANA P THE BEST SEASONS: all year round, Feast of Saint Lucy (13 December) P preferably from October to March New Year’s Eve Concert in Piazza PORTA SAN MARCO PORTA TUFI del Campo (31 December) Grosseto WWW.COMUNE.SIENA.IT/TURISMO elsewhere, but have been planted mainly as perfectly futile searching. We continue along 4 FONTE DELLE MONACHE immediately to the Accademia dei Fisiocritici, windbreaks and as landscape decoration. We Via San Marco until we come to the city gate Via delle Sperandie owes its name to the whose museum houses the most important Between art now go down Via della Diana. “Diana” is the called Porta San Marco, Saint Mark’s Gate, Benedictine nuns of Saint Agnes, commonly scientific collections in Siena. A few steps name of a legendary river that the Sienese built in the second half of the thirteenth called “Hope in God,” Spera in Dio. It is a farther along is the entrance to the Botanical and nature VIEW FROM VIA DELLE SPERANDIE looked for under the city during the Middle century. The arch above the door is a typical very long road and makes practically a right Garden, located in the valley that stretches to Suggested starting point: Parcheggio Il Duomo Ages. Their search was fruitless, and so the feature of other Sienese bulwarks. It enabled angle. The first stretch, along the city walls, the ancient city walls. According to legend, Patron Saint of Siena miraculously escaped inhabitants of Siena were teased by the the soldiers to guard the gate without being offers a splendid view of the surrounding the spirit of Giomo, a Camaldolese friar who martyrdom. The story is told that Ansanus, people of neighboring towns. A plaque at the seen. The gardens outside Porta San Marco countryside. The fortified structure you see in died heroically in battle in 1207, floats about 1 PIAZZA DEL DUOMO their city after their famous victory over the who had been sentenced to death for beginning of the street quotes Dante’s words present one of the most beautiful landscapes the distance on the left is the ancient among the vegetation. There are those who The Romanesque-Gothic cathedral of Siena Florentines in the Battle of Montaperti in refusing to worship pagan gods, emerged Legend about this fact, using it as an example of around Siena. monastery of Sant’Eugenio, Saint Eugene, are sure they have seen him wandering about dominates Piazza del Duomo, which means 1260. The painting gleams with the gold used unscathed from a cauldron of boiling oil. The founded before the year 1000. At the point near the front gate on stormy nights, and PIAZZA DEL CAMPO Cathedral Square. Inside are works by the for the background and the brilliance of its Roman proconsul Lysias then ordered that he DEPARTURE where the road makes a sharp bend, we there are even some who swear he threw greatest Italian sculptors, from Nicola Pisano colors. The custom of using a gold background be beheaded. continue along the footpath next to the FONTE DELLE MONACHE rocks at them. Sant’Agata, we go through the Arco di San to Gianlorenzo Bernini. Other art treasures was widespread in medieval painting because Ansanus died at Dofana on 1 December 303. ARRIVAL walls and then through the olive Here is the Fonte delle Monache, the Nuns’ Giuseppe, Saint Joseph’s Arch, the remains of that once enriched this sacred building are it suggested the idea of divine light. If are up It is said that where his head touched the trees, where we come to one Fountain, built in a hidden, isolated spot so 6 ORTI DEI TOLOMEI an ancient gate in the city walls. REST STOP now preserved in the Cathedral museum, to climbing 130 steps, you will be rewarded ground, a spring of water gushed forth. of Siena’s best-kept that the cloistered nuns could wash their Continuing along Via P.A. Mattioli, on the left- Then we go steeply downhill on Via G. Duprè called the Museo dell’Opera. Among its many by the view from the Facciatone, or “big secrets. clothes without being seen. hand side of the street, a narrow opening in and continue until we come out in the Piazza VIEW 1 masterpieces are the marble statues by façade,” which would have been the front of 3 PORTA SAN MARCO the wall along the sidewalk takes us into a del Campo. The square has always been the 5 the New Cathedral of Siena. Here is one of Passing through Piazzetta delle Due Porte, AIR CHECK PRATO DI city park, the Orti dei Tolomei, or Tolomei place where Sienese meet, the spot they the highest points of the city, and all of Siena where we find the oldest tabernacle in the SANT’AGOSTINO Gardens. Sidewalks run through the grassy have always considered to be the unfolds before your eyes. A curious fact may city, we walk along Via Paolo Mascagni. We now continue on Via delle lawns, and benches offer the chance to sit “showplace” of the city. Here is the center of strike your attention: there are no antennas Ettore Bastianini, a famous lyric poet Cerchia, a street that runs down for a pleasant rest. Located at a fairly city life and government. One of the most on the roofs. Siena is a cabled city, which of the early twentieth century, 2 practically level towards the high point of the city, the Gardens dominate important civic buildings in the Gothic style, means that all information travels along optic lived on this street, and the 7 Prato di Sant’Agostino. Once the valley of Valdimontone and the hill on the the Palazzo Pubblico has always been the fibers buried under the streets. Another street where we will turn upon a time it was called the other side, with old houses clinging to its seat of government, ever since the end of the artistic jewel in this square is Santa Maria left is named after him. “Via della Lellera,” because slopes. On the right, the imposing Basilica dei thirteenth century when the Government of PARKING della Scala, one of the oldest hospitals in the From Via Ettore P IL DUOMO the walls of the houses were Servi, the Servants of Mary, rises up, and on the Nine was installed. world, and today an internationally famous Bastianini we can 3 partially covered with ivy, the left the Torre del Mangia points to the sky. Since the Nine governors could not leave cultural center. The frescoes in the Sala del see the ancient “edera” in Italian but “lellera” the Palace during the six months they were Pellegrinaio illustrate the history of this walls connecting in the Sienese dialect. The Prato 7 PIAZZA DEL CAMPO in office, they had a balcony built on the ancient hospital, which in the past was a Porta Laterina di Sant’Agostino, or Saint Coming out of the Gardens, and down Via back of the palace overlooking the Market place of refuge and care for pilgrims, the with Porta San Augustine’s Meadow, is a shady park Square, called the Loggia dei Nove, the THE DUOMO AND FACCIATONE poor, abandoned children, and the sick.