I'm so glad the tower is open again. Personally I'd take Siena over Pisa any day, but doubly so when you couldn't climb the tower.

i don't think that the bag thing is recent. we went about 5 [possibly 6 years] ago and the kind person from whom i picked up our tickets [prebooked on line] not only told us where the meeting point was [at the bottom of the tower by the entrance] but also that we needed to put our bags in the lockers in the room next to the ticket office. anyone with bags waiting to go up was directed to the same place. don't know how you slipped through the net, wayfinder.

looking fwd to how you got from Pisa to siena, and back to florence all in one day!

wayfinder, I had to smile at your description of climbing the Tower. In 1963, my mom guided us three kids (ages 6-16) around Europe for the summer. Lawyers hadn't been invented yet, so the Tower was open to climb without railings or rules about bags, etc. My little sister just took off, and my poor mother's heart stopped every time we were on the down-slope side. She was sure my sister would lose her footing and just sail off the Tower.

Your trip report has been an absolute joy to read. We're headed back to Italy for our second long trip (nearly a month) this Fall. We missed the Leaning Tower on our first trip...and I think I'm going to take a pass again this trip!

Enjoying every bit of your report and, especially, getting a fun picture of DD3. She sounds like quite a character (perhaps similar to my DD at that age), but I also love how all your girls interact. Adorable family.

What a GREAT report. I had other things to do this evening, but got caught up in your trip account and now it's 1.5 hours later. Fascinating, love all the family dynamics (happens in the best of families) and, sometimes you can think back, years later and really laugh at how funny it is. Excellent, keep on going.
Sue

And we’re off to Siena!

We make it back to the Pisa train station shortly before 3:00 pm. There’s a train leaving for Siena in a few minutes. I half want to just go back to Florence and have a quiet afternoon. But we plow ahead – it’s Siena or bust! We have to change trains in Empoli so we don’t arrive in Siena until close to 5:30. Of course, it’s far later than we expected to arrive when we had this brilliant idea the day before. And curiously, it’s dark out….somehow I hadn’t factored that into the equation.

There’s a little sundries shop in the station and I ask the man behind the counter how to get the bus into town. He’s in an irritable mood so he says something quickly and I pretend to understand. We walk outside the station and look around. It’s clear we have no idea what to do, so I go back in and ask someone else. This guy motions to the building across the way. So we cross the square and inside the building, my senses are jarred. It’s a modern mini shopping mall, with a Best Buy type electronics shop and a supermarket – an American-sized supermarket! Not at all how I envisioned my introduction to Siena.

There is at least a sign with a picture of a bus on it. We follow it and it leads us to an elevator. This can’t be right. We walk around a bit aimlessly and finally decide that indeed, we’re supposed to take the elevator. We go down to a parking garage type structure and there’s a ramp from the street that is apparently the bus stop. There is a list of all the busses that come through here and where they are heading. I realize that I have absolutely no idea where we are going SPECIFICALLY. “Center of town” I thought would cover it. There’s not a soul around either. After about 10 minutes a bus arrives. I ask the driver if he’s going to the center of town. He repeats “Piazza Gramsci, Gramsci” a few times. I have no idea if that’s what we want—the map in the guide book is singularly unhelpful. We don’t get on. Finally, a few teenagers arrive from the mall. There’s a girl who’s got half a dozen piercings and pink hair. I ask her which bus goes into town and she says “tutti” – all of them.

So we get on the next bus and DH takes over the communication with the bus driver. There’s a reason he doesn’t normally do this. While a lot of my high school Italian is coming back to me, he never really learned much beyond “Una birra, per favore.” So he’s got that stereotypical way of communicating in Italian that basically involves speaking English slowly, loudly, and repetitively. We ride through the dark, unable to see a thing. We’re making our way uphill, that much is clear. Eventually the bus driver grunts at us. This is where we need to get off. He’s dropped us off at the edge of a large square (the Stadio as I discover in my post mortem) and there is some type of community festival going on.

We’re standing in front of a giant slide (the kind with the dips that you ride using burlap sacks). The girls go on the slide while DH and I try to get our bearings. DH asks one of the men in the ticket booth. No luck. He asks a passer-by – the guy doesn’t even glance down at the map DH is holding. Sorry, can’t help. I’m beginning to think the festival is celebrating the patron saint of “Provide No Assistance to Travelers.” I sense the collective feeling of a people just trying to enjoy their own town in peace for a change. And seriously, you can’t blame them.

DH is really starting to get worked up, however -- this foolhardy adventure may very well destroy the great day we’ve had so far. Suddenly I have a brilliant idea: find a hotel. Hotel staff have to help you, right? Just a block or two ahead we come across the NH Excelsior. I walk in alone (given our experience so far, I should have brought DD3 in for backup). The front desk clerk….and I swear, I’m not projecting…..GRUDGINGLY….gives me directions to the Campo. HA! There’s now an “Us” against “Siena” bravado that salvages the family mood. We simply have to walk across the piazza in front of the hotel (Piazza Gramsci as it turns out) and turn onto Via Montanini which leads right to the Campo. This is a pedestrian-only zone and the high end stores are bustling with shoppers. I don’t see a Disney store, but there’s probably one lurking somewhere.

We make it to the Campo – yay! It’s huge and empty, and pretty much looks like all the pictures I have seen of it (at least the ones where it is lit up at night and without horses running around it). There are a few open restaurants lining the piazza and we set about picking a spot for dinner. There’s one that looks really great – they have a large covered outdoor dining area and it’s packed. No chance of getting seated anytime soon though. There’s another one that has only indoor seating and doesn’t look nearly as busy. We decide to risk it. Small risk, I would say, because this is Italy after all, and the odds of being served really wretched food are small. We just get pizzas here and they are quite yummy.

After dinner, we walk out for a good look at the Campo – it’s still huge and deserted -- then head back into the lanes. There’s pretty much one thing on everyone’s mind – get back to the train station. We take the first cab we find.

So 3 hours later – after essentially going all the way to Siena for dinner (and a slide ride!) – we’re back on the train. Siena was basically a bust, but we salvaged it from becoming a disaster. The kids were real troopers through this fiasco I have to say – one of their favorite things to do in Italy was ride the train, and they got to do that in spades today. And Pisa was a blast. We’re settling back to relax when the conductor comes around ….and I get fined 5 euros for not validating our tickets before getting on the train!

We’re settling back to relax when the conductor comes around ….and I get fined 5 euros for not validating our tickets before getting on the train!≥≥

sounds like the perfect ending to the day, wayfinder. it's shame you didn't have more time for Siena. as well as the campo and its immediate surroundings, [and the cathedral of course, which though massive, is only 1/3 of the size it was meant to be] the rest of the town is also fascinating. in particular, we found another cathedral where as well as a beautiful "presepe" [nativity scene, in this case reproducing medieval siena] they have some miraculous communion wafers that have been preserved intact for about 200 years [allegedly], and a church where one of the paintings won our "ugliest baby" competition, hands down. but you need time to be able to wander around, as well as light by which to read a map!

I like the town hall with the murals that depict "Good Government" and "Bad Government." Someday you'll need to go back to do Siena justice. On our last visit, it was a special day when all the kids rode bikes around the Palio in a parade! I don't have a clue what was going on, but it was really fun.

Annhig, I don't know why we didn't even walk over to see the facade of the cathedral. We were just too numb by that point, I guess! And uhoh, I'm already secretly planning a solo trip to Tuscany and will definitely conduct a proper visit to Siena (and San Gimignano, and Montepulciano, and Cinque Terre...). Of course, it'll probably have to wait until DD3 goes off to college. But then again, you never know what twist of fate may bring me back...

You could have caught the Sita bus to Florence at Piazza Gramsci instead of going back to the train station.
http://www.sitabus.it/sita-toscana/Firenze-Siena06.pdf

What a joy to read such a well-written, well-crafted, well-organized, personalized and humorous report. Thank you.

ky - I wasn't going to tell her that - i didn't want to rub her nose in it!

Since she said she plans to return, I thought she should know that the bus is more convenient than the train (not from Pisa though).

i just thought I'd tell her later!

Dang! Just as well to get all the humiliation over with as quickly as possible! What was so bizarre about that day (even the bag check fiasco in Pisa) is that I don't typically travel like that. Even when I'm "winging it" it's usually based on a solid foundation of research and preparation. I hadn't even read the Blue Guide chapter on Siena while on the train (though in my defense, I was tied up in a marathon game of Crazy 8's with DD3). Just goes to prove that manic trip planning pays off (go Fodorites!!).

Your trip to Siena will probably go down in family lore as "remember when Mom dragged us to Siena?" and you'll all get a big laugh out of it. I'm glad you at least enjoyed the pizza and hope you do get back some day.

Well, wayfinder45, your "disaster" has helped me to decide to take the bus to Siena for sure! I was thinking that just changing trains in Florence (to go to Siena) would be easier. Now I think we might try to find that Florence bus station after all.

Wayfinder45, I thought for sure you were going to tell us you missed the last train back which is what happenned to us on our first trip to Italy. We made the opposite trip and took the train from SanDonato in Tuscany into Florence for the day. We had such a great time visiting the museums and the duomo and then my husband, just like yours, got caught up in a leather shop. He never ever shops at home. Well before you know it all 4 of us are buying leather coats and becoming great friends with the shop keeper Franco. He now wants us to go have dinner at his cousin's place and off we go. They fix us these great steaks, we're having wine and homemade limoncello and just a fun time when someone thinks to look at the train schedule - the last train leaves in 10 minutes. Off we go running to the train station having eaten and drank too much. We get there and we ask the police outside - train to SanDonato and he says gone, gone, gone. Well at the time it wasn't funny, we were in Florence and the car was at the train station in San Donato. We pleaded and begged the taxi drivers to take us back and finally driver #3 had pity on us and said he'd drive us to San Donato. If I remember correctly we paid about 85E plus a big tip. It is now one of our best memories and whenever we are with the other couple we always bring up missing the train in Florence. Also, we all love our coats. They were shipped to us and arrived on schedule.

Now I think we might try to find that Florence bus station after all.>>

nothing easier, once you know where it is!

with your back to the SMN railway station, turn to the right and walk about 100 yards. it's across a little road on your right. the ticket office is at the back on the left.

here's link to the map. you'll see that you have to find the via santa caterina di siena - it will take you longer to say it than it does to find it!

http://maps.google.com/

once you get to siena, you exit the bus and walk straight ahead/slightly to the right up a little incline - follow the crowd and you'll find the centre is about 5 mins walk away. the bus back to Florence goes from exactly the same place.