Florence or Siena?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on nightlife and places to eat with your weighting.
Has no clear advantage with the weighting you have chosen.
What matters to you?
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.
The verdict
Choose Florence if you want the denser trip: museums, restaurants, bars and notable buildings sit close together in the centre, and the evenings give you a real choice.
Choose Siena if you want a town rather than a city: heritage in a centre you can cross on foot, 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Florence's 4, and very little going on after dark.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Florence and Siena are level on 0.
| Florence | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 0 | 0 |
| Coast distance | 78 km | 64 km |
| Water distance | — | — |
Places to eat. Florence leads by 27 points.27
| Florence | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 59 | 32 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 1,299 | 242 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 15 | 11 |
Museums & heritage. Florence leads by 11 points.11
| Florence | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 82 | 71 |
| Museums within 10 km | 132 | 55 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 93 | 51 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 70 | 93 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 4 | 5 |
Nightlife. Florence leads by 39 points.39
| Florence | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 56 | 17 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 818 | 142 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 599 | 119 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 73 | 84 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 34 | 1 |
Nature & day trips. Florence leads by 19 points.19
| Florence | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 38 | 19 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 9 | 3 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 2 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 86 hectares | 29 hectares |
Good for families. Florence leads by 21 points.21
| Florence | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 52 | 31 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 30 | 13 |
| Park area within 2 km | 86 hectares | 29 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 0 | 0 |
Sights concentration. Florence leads by 25 points.25
| Florence | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 75 | 50 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 292 | 69 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Florence and Siena are level on 68.
| Florence | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 68 |
| Price level global | 64.9 | 64.9 |
| Daily budget | €155 | €155 |
Year-round weather. Florence leads by 4 points.4
| Florence | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 64 |
| Monthly daytime high | 10.8 °C to 32.7 °C | 8.9 °C to 31.3 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 32 mm to 132 mm | 49 mm to 136 mm |
| Dry months | 2 | 0 |
Where they differ
Florence has many times as many places to drink and nightclubs as Siena, most of them near the centre, so evenings there have real range. It also has many times as many restaurants and a somewhat wider spread of kitchens, and many times as many notable places within walking distance of the centre.
Siena works at another scale: a town of 52,800 rather than 361,000, with 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Florence's 4, and a centre small enough to cross on foot without planning.
Where they are alike
Neither is a swimming destination. There is no beach near either, and neither has a month with sea at 21°C or more, so a trip to either is planned around streets and interiors rather than the coast.
The weather runs on the same pattern, Florence at 11-33°C across the year and Siena at 9-31°C, cool winters and hot summers in both. Both are heritage-led, too: museums and historic buildings are the core of a visit.
Which traveller are you?
The traveller here for art and old buildings can take either. Florence holds about twice as many museums; Siena counters with 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Florence's 4, in a much smaller centre.
Anyone planning days around dinner and what follows should pick Florence: many times as many restaurants and drinking places, a somewhat wider range of kitchens, and most of it near the centre. Siena offers little after dark.
Families and walkers also do better in Florence, with about twice as many attractions near the centre, roughly three times the park space, and 9% protected land around the city against 3% around Siena. Neither has a theme park within reach.
What the numbers don't tell you
Both cities carry the same national price level, so the value comparison between them tells you nothing at all about which costs less on the ground. The €155 daily budget beside it is one national estimate, not a measurement of either place.
No weather station near Siena records sunshine hours, so that figure is missing rather than low, and the month-by-month picture there rests on temperature and rainfall alone. Note too that the driest weeks in both cities are also the hottest, at 31-33°C, so low rainfall in midsummer does not mean comfortable walking.
When should you go?
The figures behind each month. Each row is shaded against that destination's own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.
Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Florence: 1995-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Firenze / Peretola (5.6 km from centre). Siena: 2006-2017 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Arezzo (45 km from centre).
Florence peaks in May and June, with highs of 24-29°C and June rain down to 41mm. Midsummer is drier still, but highs of 33°C make walking the city hard work, and the wet turn comes in autumn.
Siena is at its best in June and again in September, with highs of 26-28°C, and its midsummer runs a little cooler than Florence's. Autumn is the catch, with 103mm of rain in September and more again in November, so late trips need indoor plans.
Getting there
| Flying from | Florence | Siena |
|---|---|---|
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 40 m €143-159 FLR · 6 km | 1 h 40 m €143-159 FLR · 55 km |
| TiranaTIA | 1 h 35 m no fares PSA · 70 km | 1 h 35 m no fares PSA · 86 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 5 m €180-199 1 stop FLR · 6 km | 2 h 5 m €180-199 1 stop FLR · 55 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 55 m €232-255 2 stops FLR · 6 km | 1 h 55 m €232-255 2 stops FLR · 55 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 55 m €136-139 1 stop FLR · 6 km | 55 m €136-139 1 stop FLR · 55 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 35 m €113-168 FLR · 6 km | 1 h 35 m €113-168 FLR · 55 km |
| MunichMUC | 1 h 15 m no fares FLR · 6 km | 1 h 15 m no fares FLR · 55 km |
| MadridMAD | 2 h 10 m no fares FLR · 6 km | 2 h 10 m no fares FLR · 55 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 1 h 30 m no fares FLR · 6 km | 1 h 30 m no fares FLR · 55 km |
| MarrakechRAK | 3 h 10 m no fares PSA · 70 km | 3 h 10 m no fares PSA · 86 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 2026-08 to 2026-10, 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
| Measure | Florence | Siena |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Italian | Italian |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CFL230 V, 50 Hz | CFL230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 | 112 |
| Elevation | 50 m | 322 m |
| Main airport | Florence Airport, Peretola (FLR)6 km from centre36 non-stop destinations | Florence Airport, Peretola (FLR)55 km from centre36 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Florence | Siena |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 360,930 | 52,812 |
| People per km² | 3,528 | 446 |
| Museums within 10 km | 140 | 29 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 4 | 5 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 62 | 25 |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Florence or Siena somewhere new.