---
title: 'One Evening in Siena'
date: '2026-09-05'
location_name: Siena
location_country: Italy
lat: 43.318
lng: 11.330
hero_image: hero.jpg
hero_alt: Piazza del Campo at dusk, terracotta paving fading from gold to shadow
published: true
---

[pull-quote image="hero.jpg" alt="Piazza del Campo seen from the upper rim at golden hour"]
Siena is not a city that tries to impress you. It has been here for a thousand years and intends to be here for a thousand more. You fit around it, not the other way.
[/pull-quote]

We rolled in at half past six, legs finished, panniers heavier than they started. The Campo appeared without warning at the end of a narrow street and we both stopped pedalling at exactly the same moment. That particular square does something to people. It is partly the shape — a shallow bowl, a scallop shell, the way it holds you — and partly the light at that hour, which turns the terracotta pavement the colour of old copper.

[chapter-break image="photo-1.jpg" title="The Campo" number="I" alt="Detail of Siena's herringbone brick pavement catching the last light" /]

[scrolly-section image="hero.jpg" alt="Piazza del Campo filling with people as evening comes" caption="Campo, 19:00 — the square fills from the edges inward"]
The locals arrive first. They know which spot faces west and which benches stay in the shade longest. Then the tourists, then the pigeons, then the long shadows.

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A busker with an accordion near the Fonte Gaia. A group of students lying on the slope reading. Three children running in a circle for reasons nobody questioned.

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We sat on the pavement with our backs against the warm brickwork of the Palazzo Pubblico and did not move for forty minutes. The relief of sitting still after eight hours on a bike is a specific physical sensation. It travels upward from your legs and settles somewhere just behind the sternum.
[/scrolly-section]

We found a place for dinner three streets away, down a flight of steps with no sign outside. The pasta was handmade, the wine was local, the bill was reasonable. We were in bed by ten. Tomorrow: Florence.
