Siena 2025 - Day 3

Thursday, September 11, 2025 – Day 3

After some restless phases due to the mattress being too firm and high, I managed to sleep quite well until 8:30 AM. Lisa is already awake and wants breakfast. Well then, let’s try this place right next to our Apartment Il Glicine. Scrambled eggs, salty prosciutto, and a lot of (homemade) cakes.

“Un cappuccino per me, per favore.”

It’s still cool, clouds are swirling around, and the sun is starting to heat things up, as well as my biceps from constantly lifting the marble-lid of the toilet tank with every flush. The mosquitoes are active, along with dragonflies and lizards. We read and read and read by the pool, and after a brief snack and rest, we head to Siena.

Parking at Stadio / Fortezza is just perfect for the start of our tour past Piazza Giacomo Matteotti with the main post office and Piazza Salimbeno with the headquarters of the oldest bank in the world (Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena) to Piazza Tolomei with the Chiesa San Cristoforo before heading to the Gelati at Nannini.

And then finally through the narrow passage down to the magnificent Piazza del Campo. It’s always impressive and simply wonderful for me: the square has 9 sections, and at the top sits the Fonte Gaia (Fountain of Joy), and at the bottom, the Palazzo Pubblico with the Torre del Mangia.

Bitter aftertaste: Since around 2017, 15 of the 20 buildings bordering the Piazza del Campo are owned by an investor from Kazakhstan (source: Wikipedia). This aligns with the information that ACN Siena is owned by an Armenian investor.

We are already too late to climb the Torre del Mangia, so we go down to the marketplace and gaze into the green south. It’s sooo beautiful here… Then “un caffè e negroni” to enjoy at the square before we head to the Basilica Cateriniana di San Domenico, where we only look into the lower church. On the way back to the parking lot, I get cash from an ATM, but the 50 note appears to be too short, somehow cropped on the left, it must be wrong.

Through the Italian evening traffic in Siena – I am fully assimilated again – back to San Rocco a Pilli straight to the center. The choice of the 3 restaurants at the square is clearly twofold: Osteria Dei Novelli da Lucone. We snag a table outside in the garden and the seats fill up with locals – perfect, we are in the right place. For me, ossobuco, house red wine, and a coffee. Very good and affordable food, atmospheric lighting, Italian chatter, perfect. Even the German youth at the last table doesn’t bother me. We still call mum on the way home and hit the bed around 10:30 PM.