Siena - mialn train or bus

The easiest way would be to ask your friends, who want to remain at the villa (with the rental car) for an extra day, to drive you to Florence (at the Santa Maria Novella Station). The car drive would be about 45 min to 1 hr (depending on where this villa is located. From Florence SMN station you would take a Freccia high speed train that will get you to Milan in about 1h 45min (there are about 2 trains every hour going to Milan). If your friends aren't willing to take you to Florence, they could take you to Siena, in Piazza Gramsci, where you can take a SITA bus to Florence. The SITA bus station in Florence is located in Via Santa Caterina da Siena, practically across the street from the Santa Maria Novella Station. From there you will take the Freccia train mentioned above. The bus ride from Siena to Florence is about 70 minutes. Alternatively they could drive you to Siena train station, where you could take a train to Florence SMN. The train ride to Florence from Siena is however 20 min. longer than the bus ride (90 min instead of 70).

wow train is slower than the bus . interesting . most likely siena bus to florence and then train from florence to milan i was thinking train all the way siena - florence - milan

If your friends aren't great at driving in Italian cities, you'll lose that 20 mins trying to get to P. Gramsci ;-) The Siena train station is easy to access by car. Train b/n Siena and Firenze may work out better for you, depending on the Firenze-Milano train you want; there are many more S-F trains than buses. BTW, the trains were faster 1 1/2 years ago...weird...faster than the buses, since most trains didn't transfer at Empoli anymore. Hmmm...Italy! No changes are permanent, I suppose. Not knowing your exact date, I can't price your trip nor see your choices.

I've done this! If your friends can't drive you (or won't) take the bus to Firenze, then take the high speed train to Milan. That's the fastest way. But this will take a half day, and you won't have much time for sight-seeing in Milan. Now for my advice, as someone who has family in the North of Italy, and HAD arrive in Milan for years.........I don't like it, not many sites,lodgings very expensive, food inferior as compared to the rest of Italy... and now I arrive in Rome, and enjoy and skip Milan unless we have a family thing......which I DO enjoy, just NOT Milan. This is just My Opinion. No Offense to those of you who love Milano. :-) What do you want to see in Milano? The Last Supper? That's worthwhile, but DO make reservations.

The train is slower because it makes stops along the way and also because the train doesn't do hills, so the railroad doesn't go straight north to Florence, but rather it follows the Elsa Valley northwest to Empoli and then swings back east to Florence along the Arno. (There is no need to change trains in Empoli). The freeway (where the express bus goes) goes straight north through the hills in a more direct way. Also the "Rapido" doesn't make too many stops. I however don't know where your exact location of the villa is, therefore it's hard to say whether it would be easier for you to go to the train station or to Piazza Gramsci to the bus. Also the bus makes a couple of stops before entering the freeway, and those bus stops may be more convenient than the Piazza Gramsci location. However it's true that once you consider the 5 min. walk from the Bus station in Florence to the train station, and the potential longer drive to the Piazza Gramsci, you might as well take the train, since the time difference would not be significant. I agree that Milan is not worth your time. Actually if you are going just to Siena, I would fly to Florence if possible (with AirFrance via Paris CDG or with Lufthansa via Frankfurt or Munich or with Delta/KLM via Amsterdam). Even if the airfare to Florence may be a little higher than Milan or Rome, however once you consider the savings for the train tickets, the expensive Milan hotel and the time, it will probably be cheaper overall in the end. From Boston you also have the Alitalia non stop option to Rome. Even that would be better than Milan (there are no non-stops from Boston to Milan).

we have to fly Milan and back since all 6 of us got free tickets and there are no flights anywhere but milan for those tickets. Most likely we will just drive from siena to Milan on last day since i realize the flight is not at 12:30pm but 2 :30 pm so we leave siena area around 7:00 am and get there by 10:30 to milan airport return car and wait and chill i guess BTW if we went to milan for the day - we just wanted to go the see the cathedral and the mall area and that was it. BTW we are doing florence from siena as a day trip and we are only interested seeing the duomo and david mesuem and the bridge. We are not art people at all so we will take a bus chill eat some good food and come back to siena area villa. thanks for all the help. i really appriciate it.