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Our Concierge Recommendations For A Week – Long Trip To Siena, Italy

Published May 4th, 2018
Experiences

In the previous post, we introduce Siena and walk you through the city and our favorite stores and restaurants.

We asked our local concierge Vittoria Moggi what our guests can do in Siena when they stay in the city for a week. Read on to learn the best tips from our local concierge and plan your itinerary for a week in Siena!

Walking tour of Siena with an English – speaking guide.

Start your journey to Tuscany with a walking tour of one of its most beautiful cities. Vittoria calls Siena a “living museum”, and, as a native Sienese, she knows best!

Step into the past and walk past fortified houses, medieval towers, the famous Piazza del Campo, and the Sienese churches.

The tour starts from the Siena Cathedral famous for it unique pavement and artworks.

Then you will go to the Opera Museum, where you will see the latest exhibitions of the most important Italian art and climb up the observation deck to soak up a magnificent view of Siena.

Equity Residences Siena Cathedral view

After the Opera Museum and Siena Cathedral, go to the beating heart of the city Piazza del Campo and visit Museo Civico to look at the famous frescos by Lorenzetti. To finish up the tour, you will climb yet another tower to – Mangia Tower – to soak up the views of the city and the square below.

On this tour, you will enjoy a visit to the museum of the Contrada, which represents the historical essence of Siena and its neighborhoods.

Finish your tour by relaxing with a glass of wine and some homemade gelato served right in the Piazza del Campo.

Siena Underground Mysteries.

In this experience, you will be accompanied in search of the legendary river Diana, which flows underneath the city of Siena.

Fun fact: the blue bedroom in our penthouse is named Fonti, which means “water” and refers to this underground river.

On this tour, you will enter ancient underground aqueducts, the so-called Bottini, where rainwater used to be collected to then flow into several famous medieval fountains, which later became symbols of each district of the city.

Finish this tour with a local Tuscan lunch and a glass of wine at a restaurant in Piazza del Campo.

Follow Count Chigi’s footsteps.

On this tour, you will follow the footsteps of Count Chigi Saracini. The building in which our penthouse is located used to belong to the Chigi family, and on this tour, you will learn the history of one of the most prominent Sienese families.

An experienced guide will tell you everything about the Count’s story as you stroll along the streets of Siena until you reach his palace, which currently hosts a Musical Instruments Museum and Accademia Chigiana.

Your journey will end with an experiential dinner with one of the best seafood and meat dishes, dining in the very room in which the Count loved to entertain with the most illustrious figures of his time.

Discover Siena through the traditions of Palio.

What defines Siena is the ancient Palio festival held in summer. Palio is essentially a competition between contradas held in a form of a bareback horse race through Piazza del Campo. The whole city of Siena lives for Palio and locals hold pride in belonging to their neighborhood’s contradas.

This tour with an English speaking guide is perfect for those who want to better understand the traditions of Palio. You will visit the Contrada museum to see the collection of Palio memorabilia, including the banners the Contrada won.

You will also visit the two churches most closely tied to Palio: the Collegiata of Santa Maria in Provenzano and the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta.

After that, you will go to a Vinaio, a famous osteria in Siena where you will taste dishes typically served during Palio.

 

Contarada flag on a wall in Siena

Tasting wine and local food at the Equity Residences Siena penthouse.

You can invite a local chef to our penthouse to prepare dinner and to demonstrate how to make Italian delicacies.

You can learn how to make the best ravioli in Siena, prepare the best steak in Siena with local beef from Chianti, and learn the tricks of preparing tiramisu right in the comfort of the apartment. 

private chef preparing pasta in the Equity Residences Siena penthouse

Our kitchen is equipped with the latest German appliances and has all the cookware a professional chef needs to prepare a dinner for up to 10 people.

Chianti steak and Chianti wine at the Equity Residences Siena penthouse

A chef can bring wine to pair with food, or you can use the bottles stored in the wine refrigerator.

Siena is a city fit for foodies. We invited a chef and his crew to demonstrate making ravioli and got an exciting cooking lesson and a wine pairing class. We highly recommend experiencing the city, and our penthouse, through your taste buds for yourself.

Discuss arrangements with Vittoria at least a week in advance and start cooking like an Italian!

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