The Grand Tour to Siena

You arrive at Marco Polo and come into the city the only way that makes sense, by boat. Once you have checked in, the rest of the day asks very little of you. Venice at six in the evening, once the day visitors have returned to the mainland, is a different city from the one in the photographs. Your first dinner is somewhere small in Dorsoduro.

St. Mark's comes first, on the earliest timed slot of the morning, with shoulders and knees covered, before the square fills. Then comes the Doge's Palace, by its Secret Itineraries tour, which leads you through the prison cells and the roof spaces the public route never sees; it must be reserved in advance. The afternoon is for walking away from San Marco: the Accademia, the Scuola Grande di San Rocco and its Tintorettos, and the spiral staircase of the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo for the rooftops.

The train leaves the island over the rail bridge beside the causeway, crosses the Veneto plain through Padua and Ferrara, and after Bologna disappears into the Apennines: seventy eight kilometers of high speed line, more than ninety percent of it in tunnel. Two hours after Venice, you arrive at Santa Maria Novella, ten minutes on foot from the river. We recommend a Business or Prima seat; the difference on a two hour run is small, and well worth it.

The morning belongs to the Uffizi, on a pre booked slot; the gallery is closed on Mondays, which decides the shape of the week. Afterward, cross the Ponte Vecchio to the Oltrarno, where the workshops are, for the Brancacci Chapel in the afternoon, booked in advance: Masaccio's frescoes, thirty minutes, ten people at a time. Dinner is in the Oltrarno.

Begin at the Accademia when it opens, to see the David without the crowd. Then climb Brunelleschi's dome at the time named on your ticket: four hundred and sixty three steps, no elevator, and a view that explains the whole city. The afternoon is for a garden, the Bardini or the Boboli, and the evening for a long dinner.

The regional line to Siena leaves Santa Maria Novella and runs through Empoli into the Chianti hills, in about an hour and a half. The station sits below the city, and a chain of escalators carries you up to the Porta Camollia and the walls. Once you have checked in, walk to the Campo before dusk, when the shell shaped square turns the color that took its name from the city.

The day begins at the Duomo and the Piccolomini Library, then climbs to the Facciatone, the unfinished facade of the cathedral that never was, for the best view of the city. If the marble floor is uncovered, it is reason enough to time a journey around it; this happens for a few weeks in summer and again in autumn. The Torre del Mangia is climbed in groups of twenty five, without reservations, so it is best visited early or late. Dinner is inside the walls.

A car and driver are yours for the day, heading south into the valley that UNESCO lists for its landscape: Pienza, the ideal Renaissance town, Montalcino and its Brunello, San Quirico d'Orcia, and lunch at a farm that makes what it serves. A licensed guide may join you for the morning, should you wish to hear the history told properly. You return to Siena for the last evening.

You travel back down the line to Florence for a flight, or continue on to Rome: Florence to Rome is an hour and twenty minutes on the high speed line, which makes a Rome departure easy and a few more days in Rome easier still.