Day Trip From Florence: Siena? San Gimignano? Both?

When is your trip? Tourist overload is worse in some months,

When is your trip? Tourist overload is worse in some months,

June

@Periscope:
Which would you choose and why?

My $.02,
I would definitely choose Siena. The visiting logistics are easer, it's closer and it is more of a "real" city that SG.
SG is beautiful but it seems to exist almost exclusively as a tourist destination. It fails my art gallery to population ratio test where the number of art and jewelry galleries seems way too many for the <8K residents that live there.
Siena has a population x7 bigger and a college and is more of a real city outside of tourism to explore and wander around in to see what is happening.

The small hill towns of Tuscany are beautiful and are definitely worth visiting but on a busy visit the charm of these small towns can be easy to miss under the influence of too many tourists. Work to get the experience you really want to have.

My $.02,
=Tod

100% Siena --- no comparison.

We did a day trip to San Gimignano last September (by car from Volterra) because I wanted to see some frescoes in the church and in another building. The town was very unpleasantly crowded --- we knew it would be crowded, but not THAT crowded. Lots of tour groups. And you can't really see the towers well from inside the town. We left as soon as we could after seeing the paintings.

Siena will be busy, too, but it's bigger and absorbs its visitors better. There is so much more to see in Siena --- we've already spent more than a week there and would love to go back.

I’m sure in June both towns will be crammed with tourists, but Siena does seem to be able to accommodate a lot of people better. I visited both last April, and not for the first time, and San G was just completely overrun. It was difficult to walk down the street. However, the day we went to Siena it was raining so maybe everyone was taking shelter. It’s really a toss up, but I would recommend one or the other, and then if you have time, visit a town not on everyone’s must see list.

I agree with others, Siena is the best choice, especially as a day trip, and especially in June or summer. Further, I suggest you try to take the last bus in the evening back to Florence, so you can enjoy the late afternoon and early evening In Siena, maybe an earlyish dinner too, after the bus tours and other day trippers have left.

I agree with others, Siena is the best choice, especially as a day trip, and especially in June or summer. Further, I suggest you try to take the last bus in the evening back to Florence, so you can enjoy the late afternoon and early evening In Siena, maybe an earlyish dinner too, after the bus tours and other day trippers have left.

This is a good idea.
Looks like there's a direct train at 20:18; think that's late enough for us to enjoy a bit of calm?

I would hit both. I like San Gimignano as much as Sienna.

You could also look into Voltera, Montepulcieano, Cortona, or Orvieto too. Get early and get on the road and see a bunch of them. They are all pretty much hill towns with parking issues. But they are not that far apart.

Sienna is a much larger place, and its main attraction is the city square, plus a nice church a few "blocks" away from the central round "square" with its imposing tower. It would be great if you can catch an even there. I never saw the horse race but I did see some kind of medieval parade that was cool one time. But because it's big, you will walk a lot more, and mainly through narrow alleys without much photo value until you get to the plaza. Restaurants were not that good from my experience - but I had some great food in San Gnignmano, Cortona and Montepulceano.

@RailRider: We won't have a car, so I'm guessing that will prove difficult. :)

Having been to San Gimignano and Siena...I would choose Lucca for a day trip.
It's not crowded, you can walk on the wall under the trees, there are some lovely restaurants, markets and shops and it's only just under two hours by train from Florence.
I have been there twice, both times for over a week and never got bored.

You might check the bus schedule as it drops off closer to Siena central

We took a day bus tour to both. I was not as impressed with the towers of San Gimignano as I expected. The Bibliotheca in the Siena Cathedral was beautiful.

There is a tour company that offers day tours to the towns you mentioned. It is called Walk about Florence and they have an all day "Best of Tuscany" trip that you can add a lunch at an organic farm. We did this trip and loved it, the bus was air conditioned and comfortable. You get a nice taste of each town with a walking tour in some of the towns and enough time to shop etc. When I am the one always figuring a 21 day trip with the logistics, what to see, open/close times, what to eat...once in a while it is nice to just hop on a bus and let someone else figure it all out.

I haven't been to any of those places recently (well, Orvieto in 2015 for language classes might count). They are all popular, which will mean crowds in the summer if not year-round. The questions for me are: 1) Is there enough to see there to justify dealing with the crowds and 2) Are there some areas not overrun.

Tiny places like San Gimignano may well be totally rammed, everywhere, and they may have little in the way of specific attractions other than the (mobbed) streetscape itself. The best way to see such places, for me, is quickly via car or an inexpensive bus tour that allows 1 to 2 hours in each of several small towns. I took advantage of van transportation offering such quick visits in Puglia, and it worked well for my purposes. (It would have been awfully rushed if I'd been trying to take a bunch of photos.)

Siena is not a tiny town without significant sights. Nor is Orvieto. It shouldn't be hard in either of those places to wander some back streets and not be surrounded by fellow travelers. There's room for visitors to spread out. Lucca and Pisa would also be less overwhelmingly touristy than San Gimignano.