If you have planned to spend your holidays in a villa in Tuscany and you have rented a farmhouse or a villa in the outskirts of Siena for one or more weeks, a visit to the town of the Palio is a must.

Since we do not want to make a long and boring list of Sienese museums (you can find any information you may need in the official website of the town council and, in general, on the internet), we will confine ourselves to suggesting some places to visit during your tour under the Torre del Mangia.

In Siena every contrada has its own museum dedicated to the Palio, the most famous horserace in the world, housing sacred objects, historical documents and the palii the contrada has won (booking required to visit them).

You should also visit the Complesso Museale di Santa Maria della Scala, which is the result of the transformation of what in the past was one of the most ancient hospitals in Europe. The first museum path was inaugurated in the mid-1990s.
The complex hosts also Siena`s Museo Archeologico Nazionale, which houses pieces of Etruscan and Roman origin that have been found during archaeological excavations in Siena and its outskirts.

Works by Duccio di Buoninsegna, Donatello, Jacopo della Quercia, Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti and other important artists are exhibited in the Museo dell`Opera Metropolitana del Duomo, next to the Cathedral.