dreamon

I am trying to plan for a holiday next year and one of the things I thought to do was to travel from Siena to Pienza by public transport, walk to Montepulciano, and then bus back to Siena, making a long day of it.

Looking at the current timetables (http://www.tiemmespa.it) it seems that this is impossible using public transport. In fact, it seems that getting to Pienza is difficult prior to mid-afternoon as there are no morning buses and the first train of the day from Siena misses the connection at Buonconvento. And the last bus back leaves Montepulciano around 2:30pm. I'm looking at route 112.

Does anyone know whether this is achievable? From my reading, visiting Pienza and Montepulciano on separate days as day trips from Siena doesn't seem to be feasible either. What am I missing?

I'm sure the sensible thing to do would be to hire a car but I do not want to drive (and anyway couldn't walk in a one way direction).

Thank you for any suggestions.

bilboburgler

http://www.sitabus.it/ might help

bvlenci

I wouldn't think of walking from Pienza to Montepulciano. It may not be far as the crow flies, but you won't have wings, and you'd be making a very steep climb.

The site indicated by Bilbo is, I think, one I've used myself in the past, but I can't find anything useful on it. A lot of ads and an invitation to download a bus app, which has a warning that it's not official.

I just checked on this site:

http://www.trainspa.it/home.html

Don't click on the English language site, which will greatly reduce your options, and end up sending you to an Italian site in the end. Click on "Ricerca orari".

Put your starting point in the left-hand box, your destination in the right-hand box, your date of travel (in European format dd/mm/yyyy), and click "Cerca soluzione". Use a date in the near future, because timetables change twice a year. Just make sure it's the right day of the week, and check again closer to your travel time.

According to this site, you can leave Siena on a weekday at 7:14 and be in Pienza by 8:35, changing in Buonconvento. That's really your only morning choice.

Starting at 2 PM, there are numerous buses from Pienza to Montepulciano, taking less than half an hour.

At 5:50 PM, you can take a bus to Sinalunga train station and change there to a bus to Siena, arriving at 7:33 PM.

That would give you about three hours in Montepulciano. You would have five hours in Pienza, which is a much smaller town. There doesn't seem to be any other way to see the two towns by bus in one day. You would have time to eat lunch in Pienza, if you get an early lunch not too far from the bus stop.

bilboburgler

I wouldn't walk it either, and I've walked half way there

greg

I think the bus schedule found is what it is. Siena is well connected due north to San Gimignano and Firenze, but poorly to Val D'Orcia destinations. I thought the bus schedule was set up to enable passengers to commute to Siena in the morning and to return in the afternoon from Siena. What you are trying to do is in the opposite direction. For this reason, I separated my trip to Siena from Val D'Orcia, and made Val D'Orcia a driving trip because the Val D'Orcia towns are also poorly connected by bus.

bvlenci

In Italy, buses are mainly used by high school students to get to specialized high schools, which are mostly in the larger towns and in the cities. This means that there are buses early in the morning (before 8 AM) from small towns to larger towns, and then buses in the afternoon in the other direction. Usually tourists base themselves in the larger towns and want to visit the smaller towns, so they're going against the flow.

As Greg says, there are very limited connections from one small town to the other. It's almost entirely hub-and-spoke travel. So it doesn't solve the problem to stay in a smaller town.

annhig

rather than hire a car and drive yourselves, you might consider using a car and drive such as Hills and Roads. I've not used them myself, but they get very god reviews here and elsewhere:

http://www.hillsandroads.com

good luck!

kybourbon

Tiemmespa is the site now used. Siena Mobilita's old website rolls over to it when you click anything.

>>>I wouldn't think of walking from Pienza to Montepulciano.<<<

I've seen people walking it multiple times including tour groups that departed Montepulciano and caught the bus on to Siena in Pienza.

If you are on the Tiemmaspa website, you can look at the map of buses for the area (the old Siena Mobilita map links no longer work). On the far right, click mappa extraurbano Siena to d/l it. You might have to enlarge it a bit to see the various routes, but it will show what options you might want to consider.

http://www.tiemmespa.it/index.php/Vi...na/Extraurbano

You might consider reversing your route also. Keep in mind there is little to no bus service on Sunday. There are several connections from Montepulciano where you can switch to the train in Sinalunga. Look at 107, 139, ST1, ST2, R54 for options.

kybourbon

Another option for return from Montepulciano is take a bus to Chiusi after your hike and catch the train back there. You will probably find more frequent buses between Montepulciano and Chiusi. The last return train from Chiusi departs at 10:59pm and takes about 1 1/2 hours to reach Siena. Don't get off at the wrong station though. I've seen people meaning to to to Siena and think they are there at the Torrita di Siena stop which is still a long way from Siena.

bvlenci

Montepulciano to Pienza would be quite another matter! Mostly downhill!

bvlenci

Is there anything wrong with the trainspa site, which I indicated above?

I haven't used buses much in extra-urban Tuscany, because we've visited by car. Once we took a bus from Montalcino to Siena, to avoid parking problems.

dreamon

Thank you so much for your information. I read of a walk from Pienza to Monticchiello to Montepulciano (about 14km I believe) but it is very interesting to know that the reverse would be downhill - always preferable to me! That local knowledge is invaluable.

I will check out the other bus website (paying attention to the suggestions you made bvlenci) and see what is best. It may be that I'm just trying to fit too much into the day but wanted to see both towns and something of the countryside. However, I don't want to be walking on a busy road - that's not much fun. I'm perfectly happy to start early in the day and return quite late, as long as I don't miss the last bus home. I hope to have a few days in Siena so hopefully can pick one that has good weather.

kybourbon

>>>Is there anything wrong with the trainspa site, which I indicated above?<<<

It's not really a different site. It used to be there were multiple sites - Siena Mobilita (for Siena province), Tra-In (not a train), etc. All those sites have now been rolled into one official site - TiemmeSpa. If you click on the trainspa link for any information, it will roll to the new TiemmeSpa site. Siena Mobilita website is essentially not working much anymore and I'm sure Trainspa will follow suit with links not functioning either.

>>However, I don't want to be walking on a busy road - that's not much fun. <<<

There are walks that aren't busy roads and not all of it would be downhill. Most people hiking aren't walking on the busy roads. If you look at the various sites about walks, you will see you are usually routed on "white" roads, not the busy road with cars flying by. The "white" roads are gravel. On this one, there is only one short section where you are near the paved road.

***From Montepulciano to Pienza

***A gentle up & downhill walk from the magnificent town Montepulciano to the perfect place Pienza along the beautiful scenery of Toscany. The walk starts at the Piazza Grande, next to the Duomo.
This walk is interesting for its varied landscape: from Montepulciano to Monticchiello you walk through countryside with olive groves, vineyards, walnut and fig trees and through typical Mediterranean woods, with holm oaks (evergreen oak Quercus Ilex), heather and broom. From Monticchiello to Pienza you walk on the balcony of the Val d'Orcia, a valley among beautiful rolling hills, framed by wheat fields, and occasional dark green pinnacles of cypress.

Walking in Tuscany | From Montepulciano to Pienza | 11 km, 3 hours ***

Here's the map.

http://www.poderesantapia.com/walk/p...iano.htm#monte

There are several reports on Fodor's on various walks and walking/hiking maps for the white roads should be available at the tourist offices (there are trail marker signs).

This trip report will give you a sense of the hiking on the white roads (they started in Buonconvento, but headed towards Montalcino first). It seems they didn't complete the report and of course, the last leg is the one that would have been of most interest to you (Pienza to Montepulciano). The rest of the report seems complete for all the other legs. They have linked to some of their FB pics so you can see what the white roads look like.

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...ltop-towns.cfm

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...=2c98d&theater

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=3&theater

dreamon

Thank you so much, kybourbon - that's really, really helpful.

dreamon

Just to let you know we ended up splitting our visit and having 3 nights in Montepulciano and 3 in Siena. One day we walked from Montepulciano to Monticchiello to Pienza. The only problem we encountered was trying to find the start of the walk but we just kept asking people along the way for the first bit. We enjoyed the walk very much and loitered in both towns, particularly Pienza, for a while before catching the bus back to Montepulciano. We had lunch in Pienza and made a full day of it. Thank you for all your advice and links to bus timetables.

bilboburgler

Thanks Dreamon, it is pretty steep up to Pienza, I pushed a loaded bike up it.