Buonconvento

Buonconvento sits on the plain of the Via Cassia, where the Arbia meets the Ombrone, twenty-five kilometers south of Siena and the main town of the Crete Senesi. The name comes from bonus conventus, happy meeting place, recorded for the first time in 1100. In August 1313 Emperor Henry VII of Luxembourg died here on his way to Rome, a death the Ghibellines blamed on poisoning.

The Sienese walled the borgo in 1379: brick curtain walls with hanging arches, two gates called Porta Senese and Porta Romana. Porta Romana was destroyed in 1944 by the retreating Germans, the same year the Allies came up the Via Cassia. The Palazzo Pretorio, fourteenth century, has twenty-five podestà coats of arms on its façade and a tower that echoes Siena's Torre del Mangia. The Museo d'Arte Sacra della Val d'Arbia holds a Madonna by Duccio di Buoninsegna from the 1290s.

From Bologna (BLQ), about 2h 38m by car.

Florence / Pisa (PSA) is about 2h 38m away.

By car from the centre of Siena 44 minutes, Perugia 1h 36m or Florence 1h 45m.

There is a railway station in the comune, so you can arrive without a car.

Coming from Florence?