Five weeks into a stay in Florence and I finally did the Siena and San Gimignano day last Tuesday. I had been putting it off because it looked like the most obvious day trip in Tuscany. It is the most obvious one. It is also good, and most of why it is good comes down to the order you do it in. We left at half eight and went to San Gimignano first, in at about ten. The coaches start unloading around eleven. For that first hour Piazza della Cisterna had maybe thirty people in it and you could stand in the middle of the square. By half twelve when we walked out you could not. Siena in the afternoon runs the opposite way. The Campo thins out around four as the day groups leave and the shade comes across at roughly the same time, so sitting on the brick with a drink at five is the part I would repeat tomorrow. It was 31 degrees and that square holds heat like a pan. The part I did not expect was the conversation on the way home. The driver had spent four hours at the Santa Caterina car park below the Campo. He said he mostly sleeps and reads, and that on group days he does three villages and never sits down once. I asked what he would choose with a single day and he said Volterra over San Gimignano. Quieter, better to walk in. I have not been, so I am only passing it on. Twelve hours door to door. Around 600 EUR for four of us.
