What is the best way to travel from Siena to Luca, bus or train?
Posted by
San Francisco Bay Area (USA)
15462 posts
The fastest would be by car.
Another option is by train. But you will need to change trains twice, at Empoli and Pisa. So you would take a Florence bound train, get off at Empoli. Then at Empoli you would take a Florence-Pisa train to Pisa. Finally from Pisa (either Centrale or San Rossore station) you would take a train to Lucca.
The option by bus would require two buses. First bus from Siena to Florence (75 min). In Florence then you need to take the DD bus to Lucca (which is fast because it goes on the A11 freeway). The problem with the DD bus is that it doesn't depart from the same bus station that the Siena bus arrives. The DD bus to Lucca departs from the Porta al Prato bus stop, therefore you'd need to take the tramway from the bus station to Porta al Prato. In the end, when all is said and done, you need 2.5 to 3 hours to get to Lucca this way.
The other option is to take the bus to Florence as in no. 3 above. Then walk from the Bus station to the train station across the street, and finally take a train to Lucca, which takes about 90 min at least.
I think in terms of time of travel, unless you can go by car, the fastest way is probably option 2.
Posted by
San Diego, California, USA
901 posts
Hello gireland549, and welcome to the boards,
To follow onto what Roberto said the train is probably the most straightforward. You definitely need to change in Florence and will probably need to change again en route but all the changes will be simply changing tracks in the same station. Also if you buy a ticket you will get all the necessary tickets rather than needing separate bus and train tickets.
People prefer the bus to the train between Siena and Florence because Siena's train station is outside of the old city center and down the hill so it is much less convenient to the old town than the buses that stop nearer old center. So you could bus from Siena to Florence and then walk to the train station - the train station is easy to find - and then proceed by train if you prefer.
The only bus company I found during a quick search looks like they do a straight Siena to Lucca from the Siena train station but it seems to only be once a day which probably isn't useful.
https://www.autolineecurcio.it/
Have a great trip, those are both great towns,
=Tod