"Siena" a Siena Travel Page by smschley

Siena is a very livable city, built to a human scale covering one square mile. You can easily walk from one end of town to the other, with an endless variety of sights along the way, including the typical European mix of homes, shops and businesses in the same block. Life is concentrated but peaceful: Cars and even bicycles are not allowed in the historic center.

There is a dense concentration of old brick houses built on top of each other, covering several hills. A major reason for this tight squeeze was the frequent warfare of the Middle Ages with attacks that might come from Florence, Pisa or Genoa, or perhaps within the city itself. This threat forced towns or competing factions to protect themselves by building walls around tight clusters of homes, creating virtual fortresses. They occupied all the precious space that they could inside the walls, and over time grew into compact towns.

Siena was founded by the Etruscans and became a Roman colony known as Saena Julia. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries it flourished as one of the major cities of Europe, but in 1348 the Black Death struck saw the beginning of a drastic downturn in Siena's fortunes. It was this marked decline that accounts for the incredible state of mediaeval preservation that Siena exhibits today. Siena is built across a range of small hills, a unique position which gives it a pleasant atmosphere of being a collection of smaller towns. There is a fair bit of up and down walking involved in seeing the sights. However, the lack of traffic makes it a wonderful place to wander - even when packed with tourists it feels pretty quiet and easygoing