VacationSelector
Lion's Head above Clifton Beach, Cape Town
Cape TownLion's Head above Clifton Beach
The cathedral facade, Siena
SienaThe cathedral facade

Photos: Cape Town by Stephan Louis, Pexels License; Siena by Raimond Spekking, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Cape Town or Siena?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Cape Town for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Cape Town’s own page.

Choose Siena for

  • day trips
  • getting around
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Siena’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Cape Town 58, Siena 14: Cape Town leads by 44 points.
Food & drink. Cape Town 72, Siena 62: Cape Town leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Cape Town 60, Siena 78: Siena leads by 18 points.
Nightlife. Cape Town 60, Siena 27: Cape Town leads by 33 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cape Town 98, Siena 65: Cape Town leads by 33 points.
Day trips. Cape Town 68, Siena 94: Siena leads by 26 points.
Good for families. Cape Town 58, Siena 38: Cape Town leads by 20 points.
Getting around. Cape Town 35, Siena 60: Siena leads by 25 points.
Shopping & style. Cape Town 50, Siena 35: Cape Town leads by 15 points.
Affordability. Cape Town 72, Siena 42: Cape Town leads by 30 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cape Town 52, Siena 36: Cape Town leads by 16 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cape Town 45, Siena 55: Siena leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cape Town and Siena.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Cape Town
Best match
61match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Siena
51match

Wins on day trips and getting around with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Cape Town in July

18 °Cdaytime high
7 °Cnight-time low
89 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
15 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Siena in July

31 °Cdaytime high
17 °Cnight-time low
27 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
Cape TownSiena

Where the figures come from

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

Siena has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cape Town: 1991-2020 normals, Cape Town Airport (17.5 km from centre). Siena: 2006-2017 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Arezzo (45 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCape TownSiena
Official languageEnglish, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign LanguageItalian
CurrencyRand (ZAR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCMN230 V, 50 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+2UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation5 m322 m
Main airportCape Town International Airport (CPT)18 km from centre45 non-stop destinationsFlorence Airport, Peretola (FLR)55 km from centre46 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCape TownSiena
City population3,776,31352,812
People per km²1,538446
Museums within 10 km2230
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km35
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone-

Where else could you go?

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

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.