Best Time to Visit
April to June and September to October; the Palio runs 2 July and 16 August
Language
Italian (English spoken in tourist areas)
Currency
Euro (EUR)
Time Zone
CET (UTC+1), CEST (UTC+2) in summer
Airport
Florence Peretola (FLR), 75 km north; Pisa (PSA), 130 km northwest — Siena has no airport
Population
53,000 (city proper), 265,000 (province)
Climate
Mediterranean — hot dry summers (30-33°C), cool damp winters (3-10°C)
Safety Rating
Very Safe (Level 1)
UNESCO Status
Historic centre inscribed since 1995
The shell-shaped brick square sloping down to the Palazzo Pubblico, paved in nine segments for the medieval Council of Nine who governed here. Free and open always. Allow 30 min just to sit on the warm brick with everyone else — that is the intended use. Twice a year it becomes a racetrack.
A zebra-striped marble cathedral of almost aggressive ambition. Entry via the OPA SI Pass (~€15-21), covering the Duomo, Piccolomini Library, Baptistery, Crypt and Museo dell'Opera. Allow 2-3h for the complex. The 56-panel inlaid marble floor is only fully uncovered for a few weeks — roughly late June to July and mid-August to mid-October.
87m and 400 steps with no lift, capped at ~50 people inside at once. Entry ~€10 — book a time slot online or arrive at opening, because the queue is capped and closes early. Allow 45 min. Built to exactly match the Duomo's height so that church and state stood level.
Holds Ambrogio Lorenzetti's 'Allegory of Good and Bad Government' (1338) — the most important secular fresco cycle of the Middle Ages, painted to remind the councillors next door what they were for. Entry ~€10. Allow 1h. Still partly Siena's working town hall.
Climb the wall of the 'new cathedral' Siena began in 1339 and abandoned when the Black Death killed half the city — the nave was never built, so you stand on the top of an unfinished facade. Included in the OPA SI Pass. Narrow spiral stairs, timed entry. The best view in Siena, and a monument to overreach.
A pilgrim hospital that ran for a thousand years, now a museum stacked four levels into the hillside opposite the Duomo. Entry ~€9. Allow 1.5h. The Pellegrinaio ward is frescoed with scenes of the hospital at work — medieval medicine, painted by the people doing it. Far emptier than anything across the square.
Free entry, allow 30 min. The preserved head of St. Catherine of Siena — patron saint of Italy and co-patron of Europe — is displayed in the chapel; the rest of her is in Rome. The terrace outside gives the classic view of the Duomo floating above the rooftops at sunset.
Land at Florence Peretola (FLR), 75 km north — Siena has no airport. Tram T2 to Firenze Santa Maria Novella, then the Autolinee Toscane Rapida coach from the Autostazione next door, which drops you at Piazza Gramsci inside the walls, five minutes from the Campo. Resist the urge to rent a car today: the historic centre is a camera-monitored ZTL and a single wrong turn is an €80-100 fine that reaches you months later via your rental company.
Tram T2 from FLR to Firenze Santa Maria Novella(22 minutes)
€1.70 from the machine on the platform, validate on board. Runs every 5 min. The Autostazione is a 4-minute walk from the tram stop, on Via Santa Caterina da Siena.
Rapida coach 131R, Florence to Siena(75 minutes)
~€9, buy on the at-bus app or at the Autostazione window. Take the Rapida, not the Ordinaria — the ordinary service stops in every Chianti village and takes 2 hours. Sit on the left for the vineyards.
Check in — Terzo di Città(45 minutes)
Palazzo Ravizza (Pian dei Mantellini 34) is a family-run palazzo with a garden that drops straight into open countryside — rare inside the walls. Wheel your bag along Via di Città's flagstones, not the brick side lanes; the brick will destroy your wheels.
Walk down Banchi di Sopra to Piazza del Campo(30 minutes)
Time this for after 7PM. The day-trippers leave at 6 and the square exhales. Nine brick segments fan down to the Palazzo Pubblico, one for each member of the medieval Council of Nine. Sit on the warm brick — that is the intended use.
Aperitivo at Bar Il Palio(1 hour)
Piazza del Campo 47. You are paying €9 for a spritz and €4 for the view of the Torre del Mangia going gold. Worth it once; after tonight you drink at Enoteca I Terzi.
Dinner at Trattoria Papei(1.5 hours)
Piazza del Mercato 6, directly behind the Palazzo Pubblico. Order pici all'aglione (€10) — fat hand-rolled spaghetti in a garlic-tomato sauce that has been on Sienese tables for 500 years. No reservation before 8PM and you will wait; go at 7:30.
Everything today happens within 100 metres of Piazza del Duomo — the cathedral on one side, the thousand-year-old pilgrim hospital directly opposite. Buy the OPA SI Pass first thing at the Duomo ticket office; individually these sites run €8-15 each, so the pass pays for itself at the second door.
Buy the OPA SI Pass(15 minutes)
Duomo ticket office, Piazza Duomo 8, opens 09:30. €15-21 depending on season and whether the inlaid marble floor is uncovered. Covers Duomo, Piccolomini Library, Baptistery, Crypt, Museo dell'Opera and the Facciatone climb.
Duomo di Siena and the Piccolomini Library(1.5 hours)
Opens 10:30 (Sundays 13:30). Be at the door at 10:25. Nicola Pisano's 1268 pulpit is the reason to look up; the 56-panel inlaid marble floor is the reason to look down — fully uncovered only roughly late June to July and mid-August to mid-October. The Piccolomini Library off the left aisle is a colour bomb: Pinturicchio frescoed it 1502-08 and the pigment has barely faded.
Baptistery and the Crypt(45 minutes)
Down the steps behind the apse on Piazza San Giovanni — most people never find them. The baptismal font carries panels by Ghiberti, Donatello and Jacopo della Quercia in one basin. The Crypt was only rediscovered in 1999 under a century of rubble; its 13th-century frescoes never saw sunlight, so the blues are still blue.
Lunch at Pizzicheria de Miccoli(30 minutes)
Via di Città 93-95. A wild boar hangs over the counter and the ceiling is entirely salami. Ask for a panino with finocchiona and pecorino di Pienza, ~€6. Eat it standing on the street like everyone else.
Museo dell'Opera and the Facciatone climb(1.5 hours)
Duccio's Maestà (1311) is here — it was carried into the Duomo in procession with the whole city following, and it is still the best thing in Siena. Then take the narrow spiral stairs to the Facciatone: you are standing on the top of a cathedral facade that has no cathedral behind it. Siena began the 'new Duomo' in 1339 and the Black Death killed half the city before the nave went up. Best view in town, and a monument to overreach.
Santa Maria della Scala(1.5 hours)
€9, straight across the square, open to 19:00 in summer. A pilgrim hospital that ran for a thousand years, now stacked four levels down into the hillside. The Pellegrinaio ward is frescoed with the hospital actually working — medieval medicine painted by the people doing it. It is half-empty while the Duomo is heaving 40 metres away.
Dinner at Osteria da Divo(2 hours)
Via Franciosa 25. The back dining rooms are carved Etruscan tomb chambers — actual ones. Book a day ahead and ask for a table in the cellar rooms, not the front. Mains €18-24.
The Campo's civic core in one day. Get to the tower at opening — only ~50 people are allowed inside at once, so the queue is capped and the ticket desk simply closes when the day's slots are gone, often by early afternoon in summer.
Torre del Mangia(45 minutes)
€10, opens 10:00. Book a time slot online the night before or be in the courtyard by 09:45. 87 metres, 400 steps, no lift, and the last flight is a near-vertical ladder in a stone shaft — genuinely not for the claustrophobic. Built to exactly match the Duomo's height so that church and state stood level.
Palazzo Pubblico & Museo Civico(1.5 hours)
€10, same courtyard. Ambrogio Lorenzetti's 'Allegory of Good and Bad Government' (1338) wraps the Sala dei Nove — the councillors sat in this room with a painted reminder of what happens if they got it wrong. The Bad Government wall is deliberately damaged and half-ruined; the Good Government wall shows Siena's own streets. Next door, Simone Martini's Maestà. The building is still partly the working town hall.
Fonte Gaia(15 minutes)
The fountain at the top of the Campo. What you are looking at is a 19th-century copy — Jacopo della Quercia's weathered 1419 originals are inside Santa Maria della Scala, which you saw yesterday. Water still arrives here through the bottini, 25 km of hand-dug medieval tunnels under the city.
Lunch at Consorzio Agrario di Siena(1 hour)
Via Pianigiani 5, just off Banchi di Sopra. A working farmers' co-op food hall since 1901 with a pizza-al-taglio and pasta counter at the back. Locals outnumber visitors four to one. Full plate and a glass of Chianti Colli Senesi for under €12.
Pinacoteca Nazionale(1.5 hours)
Via San Pietro 29, €8, and you may have entire rooms to yourself. This is the Sienese school laid out chronologically — Duccio, Simone Martini, the Lorenzetti brothers, and Sassetta's small strange panels. Go upstairs first and work down; the top floor is the good one and everyone runs out of stamina before reaching it.
Sunset from the Basilica di San Domenico terrace(45 minutes)
Free entry, 15 min walk northwest. Inside, the preserved head of St Catherine of Siena is displayed in her chapel — patron saint of Italy, and the rest of her is in Rome. Then step onto the terrace outside for the postcard: the Duomo's striped mass floating above the rooftops, best 30 minutes before sunset.
Dinner at La Taverna di San Giuseppe(2 hours)
Via Giovanni Duprè 132, five minutes uphill from the Campo. Book at least three days ahead. The dining room is a 12th-century Etruscan cellar and the Cinta Senese pork is the best version of Siena's native pig you will eat. €45-55 a head with wine.
The medieval Manhattan, 40 km northwest. Fourteen towers survive of an original seventy-odd, built by rival families in a straight competition to out-build each other. Take the bus — it is direct-ish, cheap, and spares you the ZTL. Go early: San Gimignano between 11AM and 4PM is a coach park with a town attached.
Bus 130 from Piazza Gramsci to Poggibonsi, change for San Gimignano(75 minutes total)
~€6.50 each way. The 08:10 departure gets you inside the walls before the Florence coaches. Buy both legs on the at-bus app; the Poggibonsi change is across the same bus station forecourt, roughly 10 minutes.
Collegiata di Santa Maria Assunta(1 hour)
€5, open from 10:00. From the outside it is a plain brick barn; inside, every wall is frescoed — Bartolo di Fredi's Old Testament on the left, Lippo Memmi's New Testament on the right, Taddeo di Bartolo's gleefully horrible Last Judgement over the door. Ghirlandaio's Santa Fina chapel is the quiet masterpiece most people walk past.
Torre Grossa(45 minutes)
€9 including the Palazzo Comunale and Pinacoteca. 54 metres and the only tower in town you are allowed to climb — from the top you see the other thirteen at eye level, which is the whole point. On the way, the Sala di Dante has Lippo Memmi's Maestà; Dante himself spoke in this room in 1300.
Vernaccia tasting at the Rocca di Montestaffoli(1 hour)
The ruined fortress at the top of town, free to enter, with the Museo del Vino inside. Vernaccia di San Gimignano was Italy's very first DOC in 1966 — a mineral, almondy white that has nothing to do with the sweet stuff its name suggests. Tasting flights around €10-15. The wall walk here is the best free view in Tuscany.
Gelato at Gelateria Dondoli(20 minutes)
Piazza della Cisterna 4. Sergio Dondoli has won the gelato world championship more than once and there is always a line — join it. Get the Crema di Santa Fina (saffron and pine nuts) or the Vernaccia sorbet. €3.50.
Sant'Agostino and the walk back(45 minutes)
Free, at the far quiet end of town. Benozzo Gozzoli's Life of St Augustine cycle runs behind the altar and there is usually nobody in here. Walk the back lanes toward Porta San Matteo on the way out — the crowd never leaves the two main streets.
Return bus and late dinner in Siena(2.5 hours)
Last useful connection back is around 18:30-19:00 — check the at-bus app in the morning, because Sunday service thins out badly. Eat at Il Grattacielo (Via dei Pontani 8), a two-table hole in the wall where €12 gets you a board of cured meats, pecorino and a jug of red.
No tickets, no queues, no opening times to chase. Today is about the seventeen contrade — the rival neighbourhoods that actually run this city — and the parts of Siena the day-trippers never reach. Sleep in. Start at 10.
Coffee and ricciarelli at Nannini(30 minutes)
Banchi di Sopra 24, Siena's caffè since 1872 (yes, the singer Gianna is family). Stand at the bar — €1.30 for an espresso seated is €4. Take a ricciarello, the soft almond biscuit, and a slice of panforte to see what 700-year-old crusader rations became.
Casa di Santa Caterina and Fontebranda(1.5 hours)
Costa di Sant'Antonio, free. Catherine's family home, converted into a stack of oratories — her father was a dyer and the house sits above the Fontebranda spring that fed the trade. Walk down the steep lane to the fountain itself: a 12th-century brick arcade still full of water, in the heart of Contrada dell'Oca (the Goose), the most decorated contrada in Palio history.
Contrada museum visit(1 hour)
Each contrada keeps its own museum of banners, costumes and every Palio it has ever won — and they open by appointment only, free, staffed by volunteers. Email the Oca or the Torre (Via Salicotto) a week ahead via their contrada website. This is the single best thing you can do in Siena and almost no visitor does it: someone's grandfather will walk you through 400 years of grudges.
Spot the contrada boundaries(30 minutes)
Walk any lane and watch the wall plaques and street lamps change: a snail, a wave, a tortoise, a caterpillar. Each contrada has its own modern baptismal fountain where babies are formally made members. You will start seeing the city as seventeen villages that happen to share a wall.
Lunch at Orto de' Pecci(1.5 hours)
Via Porta Giustizia 39. Five minutes below the Campo there is an actual farm in a green valley inside the medieval walls — an urban co-op that employs people in recovery, with donkeys, a vineyard and a restaurant using its own produce. €15-20 for lunch under the trees, with the Torre del Mangia over your shoulder. Almost no tourist finds it.
Fortezza Medicea walls at sunset(1 hour)
Free, always open. Cosimo I built it in 1561 to sit on the Sienese after Florence crushed the republic, and they hated it so much they now use it for jogging and jazz. Walk the ramparts anticlockwise for the whole city in profile. In July it hosts Siena Jazz; in the evenings it is teenagers and dog walkers.
Dinner at Grotta di Santa Caterina da Bagoga(2 hours)
Via della Galluzza 26. The chef, Pierino Fagnani, rode in the Palio seventeen times under the nickname Bagoga and won it twice; the walls are his. Order the pici alle briciole and let him talk to you about horses. €35-45.
Head north on the SR222 — the Chiantigiana — through the vineyards between Siena and Florence, with a walled hill fort as the first stop. Hire a car with a driver for the day (€250-320 through your hotel, split between two couples it is fine) or rent from the office on Via Vittorio Veneto near the Fortezza and park outside the walls on return. If you drive, one person tastes and one does not; the Carabinieri run checkpoints on the Chiantigiana on weekends.
Monteriggioni walls(1 hour)
20 minutes north, €4 for the walls and museum, opens 09:30. Fourteen towers on a perfect ring wall, built by Siena in 1214 as a forward fort against Florence. Dante saw it and put it in Inferno XXXI — the giants ringing the pit of hell stand 'as Montereggion crowns itself with towers.' The wall walk takes 15 minutes; the village inside is two streets and a well. Be gone by 11 when the coaches land.
Castellina in Chianti and the Via delle Volte(1 hour)
25 minutes east through vineyards. Duck into the Via delle Volte — a covered medieval walkway tunnelled inside the ramparts, with windows punched through to the valley on one side. It is dark, cool and completely free, and it was a defensive corridor before it was a curiosity.
Lunch at Antica Macelleria Cecchini, Panzano(2 hours)
Via XX Luglio 11. Dario Cecchini is an eighth-generation butcher who recites Dante over the meat counter and hands out free glasses of wine and lard on toast to whoever is standing there. Three ways to eat: MacDario upstairs (a €15-20 burger, walk-in), Solociccia (€35, communal tables, no steak), or the Officina della Bistecca (€60ish, the full bistecca alla fiorentina). Book Officina and Solociccia weeks ahead; MacDario you can chance.
Tasting at Castello di Ama, Lecchi in Chianti(1.5 hours)
Book ahead, ~€30-40. A working Chianti Classico estate that commissions serious contemporary art and buries it in the cellars and courtyards — Kapoor, Kounellis, Daniel Buren. You walk from a Louise Bourgeois installation into a barrel room. Their L'Apparita Merlot is one of Italy's great wines and their base Chianti Classico is €25 at the gate.
Greve in Chianti, Piazza Matteotti(45 minutes)
The arcaded triangular square — irregular because each family built their own arch. Antica Macelleria Falorni has been curing meat on this square since 1729; buy vacuum-packed finocchiona and cinghiale salame to take home (it is legal into the UK/EU, not into the US).
Return to Siena(45 minutes)
Down the SR222 with the light going sideways across the vineyards. Park at Il Fagiolone (Via Vittorio Emanuele II, free) or Parcheggio Stadio and walk in through Porta Camollia, which carries the inscription 'Cor magis tibi Sena pandit' — Siena opens its heart to you wider still.
Late dinner at Enoteca I Terzi(1.5 hours)
Via dei Termini 7. Kitchen runs late by Siena standards, the wine list is the deepest in the walls, and they will happily pour you three Chianti Classicos side by side to show you what the day was actually about. €40 a head.
The coach back to Florence takes 75 minutes and the tram to FLR another 22, so work backwards from your flight and add an hour of slack — the Rapida runs roughly hourly but thins on Sundays. Leave the bags at the hotel and take one last lap.
Final espresso on the Campo(30 minutes)
Not at the terrace tables. Go to Caffè Fiorella, Via di Città 13 — a bar barely two metres wide where they roast their own beans, €1.20 standing, and then carry it round the corner and sit on the brick for ten minutes.
Shopping on Via di Città and Banchi di Sopra(1.5 hours)
Antica Drogheria Manganelli (Via di Città 71-73) for panforte and cantucci in tins that survive a suitcase. Pizzicheria de Miccoli for vacuum-packed pecorino. Skip the contrada flags in the tourist shops — if you want one, the contrada museums sell the real ones and the money stays in the neighbourhood.
Hotel checkout and walk to Piazza Gramsci(30 minutes)
Checkout is usually 11:00. All roads inside the walls converge on the ridge streets; Gramsci is a 5-10 minute walk from anywhere in the centre, and the bus station is the underground level below the piazza — go down the ramp, do not stand at street level looking confused.
Rapida coach to Firenze Autostazione(75 minutes)
~€9 on the at-bus app. Buy the ticket before boarding; the driver's card reader is unreliable and buying on board carries a surcharge.
Tram T2 to Florence Peretola (FLR)(22 minutes)
€1.70. The stop is a 4-minute walk from the Autostazione, back past Santa Maria Novella. If you are flying from Pisa (PSA) instead, take the train from Firenze SMN to Pisa Centrale (~1h) and the Pisa Mover shuttle (5 min, €5) — budget 2.5 hours from Siena, not 2.
Italy is in the Schengen area — US, UK, Canadian and Australian passport holders get 90 days visa-free in any 180. The EU Entry/Exit System (EES) has been fully operational at all Schengen external borders since 10 April 2026: expect a facial scan and fingerprints on first entry instead of a passport stamp. ETIAS is NOT yet required — it launches in Q4 2026 and only becomes mandatory around April 2027, at EUR 20 (free under 18 and over 70). The official portal is not open yet, so any site selling you an ETIAS today is a scam.
Siena's rail link requires a change at Empoli and drops you below the hill. The Autolinee Toscane Rapida coach from Florence's Autostazione takes ~75 min for ~€9 and stops at Piazza Gramsci, inside the walls and five minutes from the Campo. This is the rare case where the bus simply wins.
The historic centre is a ZTL (limited traffic zone) monitored by camera. Driving in without a permit triggers an automatic fine of €80-100+ per pass, typically arriving via your rental company months after you fly home. Park at Il Campo, Santa Caterina or Stadio and ride the escalators up. Your hotel can register your plate if you must drive in — ask first, not after.
The OPA SI Pass (~€15-21 depending on season and whether the marble floor is uncovered) bundles the Duomo, Piccolomini Library, Baptistery, Crypt, Museo dell'Opera and the Facciatone climb. Individually these run €8-15 each, so the pass wins from the second site. Buy it at the Duomo ticket office.
Two 90-second bareback races (2 July, 16 August) between ten of the 17 contrade, run on packed earth over the Campo's bricks. This is a live neighbourhood rivalry with medieval roots, not a re-enactment. The centre of the Campo is free, but you must be inside by ~4PM for a ~7PM race, with no re-entry, no shade and no toilets. Balcony seats run €250-500+ and sell out a year ahead.
Almost everyone arrives from Florence at 10AM and is gone by 6PM. Siena after the day-trippers is a different city: the Campo goes quiet, the contrada fountains and flags start making sense, and the restaurants stop performing. One night changes the whole visit.
Travel GuidesSiena's easy to do badly - roll in, snap the Campo, leave by six. Don't. From the Facciatone climb your Duomo pass already covers to the farm hidden inside the walls, here are 12 things in Siena worth your hours, plus the three rules that fix everything.
SeasonalTwo afternoons a year - 2 July and 16 August - Siena's Piazza del Campo becomes a bareback racetrack and the whole city loses its mind on purpose. Here's how to build a Tuscan summer around the Palio, from the weather to the packing list to race-day crowds.
StoriesWhen the last coach to Florence pulls out, Siena stops performing and starts breathing. Follow the golden-hour walk down to the shell-shaped Campo, up to the striped Duomo, and into the pici and panforte of a city built for staying the night.
