VacationSelector

Cairo or Siena?

Two destinations compared in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

The pyramids of Giza, Cairo
Cairo

Photo: Ricardo Liberato, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped

The cathedral facade, Siena
Siena

Photo: Raimond Spekking, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped

Your match

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Cairo
50
match

Wins on prices and shopping with your weighting.

Siena
51
match

Wins on wellness and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

Scoreboard

Our verdict on each category, scored 0 to 100 against fixed benchmark cities.

CairoSiena
Beaches & swimming. Siena leads by 4 points.4
Food & drink. Siena leads by 2 points.2
Culture & sights. Cairo leads by 18 points.18
Nightlife. Cairo leads by 21 points.21
Nature & outdoors. Siena leads by 35 points.35
Day trips. Siena leads by 28 points.28
Good for families. Siena leads by 6 points.6
Getting around. Siena leads by 25 points.25
Shopping & style. Cairo leads by 23 points.23
Affordability. Cairo leads by 53 points.53
Live music & performing arts. Cairo leads by 14 points.14
Wellness & relaxation. Siena leads by 40 points.40
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cairo and Siena.

When should you go?

Pick the month you can travel and see both cities side by side. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Climate figures for July
JulyCairoSiena
Daytime high36 °C31 °C
Night-time low23 °C17 °C
Rainfall in the month0 mm53 mm
Sunshine12 hours a dayNo figure
Daylight14 hours a day15 hours a day

The whole year

Each row is shaded against that destination’s own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that figure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Cairo
19
21
24
29
33
35
36
36
34
30
26
21
Siena
9
11
15
20
23
28
31
31
26
20
14
10
Rainfall, mm
Cairo
6
5
10
1
1
0
0
0
0
1
1
7
Siena
71
79
107
75
99
71
53
49
103
86
136
110
Daylight, hours per day
Cairo
10
11
12
13
14
14
14
13
12
12
11
10
Siena
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Cairo
7
7
9
9
11
11
12
11
10
10
9
7
Siena
No sunshine record

Where the figures come from

Siena's temperatures are measured 45 km from the centre, at Arezzo.

Siena's rainfall is measured 115 km from the centre, at Frontone.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cairo: 1991-2020 normals, Helwan (21.9 km from centre). Siena: 2006-2017 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Arezzo (45 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromCairoSiena
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
4 h 25 m
€249-480
CAI · 17 km
1 h 40 m
€143-159
FLR · 55 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
4 h 50 m
€240-288
CAI · 17 km
2 h 5 m
€180-199
1 stop
FLR · 55 km
RomeFCO, CIA
3 h 10 m
€280-302
CAI · 17 km
55 m
€136-139
1 stop
FLR · 55 km
AmsterdamAMS
4 h 30 m
no fares
CAI · 17 km
1 h 55 m
€232-255
2 stops
FLR · 55 km
BarcelonaBCN
4 h 5 m
€267-335
CAI · 17 km
1 h 35 m
€113-168
FLR · 55 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
4 h 5 m
€245-328
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
1 h 30 m
no fares
FLR · 55 km
ZurichZRH
3 h 55 m
€267-300
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
1 h 10 m
no fares
FLR · 55 km
MadridMAD
4 h 35 m
€274-412
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
2 h 10 m
no fares
FLR · 55 km
MilanMXP, BGY, LIN
3 h 45 m
€147-173
CAI · 17 km
1 h 5 m
no fares
EBA · 108 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
2 h 10 m
€154-167
CAI · 17 km
2 h 25 m
€154-191
1 stop
BLQ · 135 km

The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-10 to 2026-12, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.

Before you go

MeasureCairoSiena
Official languageArabicItalian
CurrencyEgyptian Pound (EGP)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCF220 V, 50 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+2, UTC+3 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 122, ambulance 123, fire 180112
Elevation23 m322 m
Main airportCairo International Airport (CAI)17 km from centre127 non-stop destinationsFlorence Airport, Peretola (FLR)55 km from centre46 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year15 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCairoSiena
City population9,801,53652,812
People per km²18,564446
Museums within 10 km4829
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km25

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cairo or Siena somewhere new.

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Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Non-stop route lists from the "Airlines and destinations" tables on English Wikipedia airport articles, by Wikipedia contributors, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Currency from the ISO 4217 register maintained by SIX, cross-checked against country data from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Price level from World Bank open data (PPP conversion factor for private consumption and official exchange rate), CC BY 4.0. Time zones from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); clock offsets computed from the IANA time zone database. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate and flight figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-27. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.