Siena
It's passionate and contemplative, known and unknown, steps and alleyways of days long gone. The singular colour of the Piazza del Campo takes one by surprise. In the districts, museums and oratories of the contradas, the songs of the Palio evoke ancient rituals and modern cheer, while at night the footsteps of shoes on the deserted streets couldn't be further from the peace of the green valleys, closed out of the town by the walls built hundreds of years ago, before Siena became a true city. Siena is also the Duomo, the cathedral and the breathtaking view from the Facciatone; the Pilgrim's Hall at Santa Maria della Scala, the Piccolomini Library and the prestigious Chiagiana Academy. The overpowering fortress now holds the Enoteca Italiana, and with it the most precious wines of the region, of Tuscany and of the whole country; the smells from the trattorie, the sound of the craftsmen and the splashes from the fountains; Fontebranda and the mystery of Diana, the famous underground river and the geometric architecture of the Piazza, at once suggestively neo-Gothic and cathartic. These are the reasons why "Cor magis tibi Saena pandit" (Siena opens her heart more than her doors to you), as engraved above Porta Camollia...."
It is an historic medieval city in the region of Tuscany, located in the north of Italy, and lying some 70 km (43 miles) south of Florence. It is probably best known for a colourful horse race, Il Palio, conducted twice each year in the summer. Siena is the most compact of the cities,It’s built on three ridges that radiate out from the Piazza del Campo, rather like some mysterious, theree-legged sea creatures long embedded in a rock. Each leg forms one of the “terzi” , or thirds , into which the city has tradionally been divided . Everything is then neatly enclosed within a ring of well-preserved medioval walls.