Day 41: day trip to Siena

We left Florence early in the morning to make a quick spontaneous trip to Sienna on our way to our last-minute planned ferry from Civitaviecchia (a port near Rome) to Barcelona.

A friendly local led us to the entrance of the old city of Sienna.

We happened to have arrived at a great time and date. The Palio di Siena was to start in the next few days and preparations were being made including the ceremony of the lottery choosing which horses would race for which contrada (region).

It was great to be able to watch the ceremony take place and see the passionate locals call for their favourite horse.

Each flag represents the different contradas.

We continued exploring after the festivities died down.

The Siena cathedral.

Inside the cathedral.

For lunch we got aranchini and sat at a lookout reading and eventually snoozing, before getting our train to Civitavecchia.

We ended up being very late for our ferry and were very stretched for time, panicking as we ran to collect our tickets and board. It turned out however that the ferry stayed docked for another 1.5 hours, leaving well later than expected.