Ljubljana 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.
Wins on museums & heritage and year-round weather with your weighting.
What matters to you?
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.
The verdict
Choose Ljubljana if you want evenings out, a wider choice of kitchens and green space on the doorstep, with 13% of the surrounding land protected and short walks between the notable places in the centre.
Choose Siena if museums and heritage are the point: it has more of them, plus 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, and it runs warmer across the year.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Ljubljana and Siena are level on 0.
| Ljubljana | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 10 | 0 |
| Coast distance | 72 km | 64 km |
| Water distance | — | — |
Places to eat. Ljubljana leads by 23 points.23
| Ljubljana | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 55 | 32 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 292 | 242 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 40 | 11 |
Museums & heritage. Siena leads by 16 points.16
| Ljubljana | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 55 | 71 |
| Museums within 10 km | 26 | 55 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 23 | 51 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 88 | 93 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 3 | 5 |
Nightlife. Ljubljana leads by 28 points.28
| Ljubljana | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 45 | 17 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 458 | 142 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 284 | 119 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 62 | 84 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 24 | 1 |
Nature & day trips. Ljubljana leads by 21 points.21
| Ljubljana | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 40 | 19 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 13 | 3 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 5 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 75 hectares | 29 hectares |
Good for families. Ljubljana leads by 7 points.7
| Ljubljana | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 38 | 31 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 12 | 13 |
| Park area within 2 km | 75 hectares | 29 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 0 | 0 |
Sights concentration. Ljubljana leads by 8 points.8
| Ljubljana | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 58 | 50 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 109 | 69 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Ljubljana leads by 4 points.4
| Ljubljana | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 72 | 68 |
| Price level global | 59.6 | 64.9 |
| Daily budget | €131 | €155 |
Year-round weather. Siena leads by 8 points.8
| Ljubljana | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 56 | 64 |
| Monthly daytime high | 4.1 °C to 27.9 °C | 8.9 °C to 31.3 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 67 mm to 159 mm | 49 mm to 136 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 0 |
Where they differ
Ljubljana is much the livelier after dark, with about three times as many places to drink and many more nightclubs, most near the centre. It has somewhat more restaurants near the centre and a wider range of kitchens, and 13% of the land around it is protected against 3% around Siena.
Siena's strength is heritage: about twice as many museums, and 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Ljubljana's 3. It also runs warmer through the year, with daytime highs of 9-31°C against 4-28°C.
Where they are alike
Ljubljana has 10 beaches within reach and Siena none, but neither has a month with sea at 21°C or more, so neither is a trip to book for swimming.
They are close on family appeal too: much the same number of tourist attractions near the centre in each, and no theme park within reach of either. Both keep their sights walkable, and the national daily budgets behind them, €131 and €155, sit close together.
Which traveller are you?
Anyone building a trip around evenings out and eating should take Ljubljana. It has about three times as many places to drink, many more nightclubs and a much wider range of kitchens, most of it near the centre.
For museums and heritage, Siena. It has more museums, and 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Ljubljana's 3, in a compact centre you can cover on foot.
Families and anyone who wants time outdoors lean to Ljubljana: about three times as much park space near the centre, and 13% of the surrounding land protected. Neither city has a theme park within reach.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €131 and €155, are national estimates for Slovenia and Italy, not measurements of Ljubljana or Siena. Either city can sit some way from its country's average, by more than the gap between the two figures, so read them as background on price levels rather than a verdict on what either trip costs.
No weather station near Siena records sunshine hours, so that figure is absent rather than low. The monthly picture there rests on temperature and rainfall alone, which leaves that side of the weather comparison with Ljubljana unmeasured rather than settled.
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. Ljubljana: 1991-2020 normals, Ljubljana / Bezigrad (1.9 km from centre). Siena: 2006-2017 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Arezzo (45 km from centre).
Ljubljana is at its best from June to August, when highs reach 26-28°C. Rain does not ease off for the warmth: those months run above 120mm and September is the wettest of all at 159mm, so pack for showers.
Siena's window is longer and drier: July and August reach 31°C and are the least wet months of the year, near 50mm, while September still holds 26°C with rain returning. Spring is the alternative if the heat is too much.
Getting there
| Flying from | Ljubljana | Siena |
|---|---|---|
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 10 m no fares TRS · 84 km | 55 m €136-139 1 stop FLR · 55 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 45 m €139-178 1 stop LJU · 20 km | 1 h 40 m €143-159 FLR · 55 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 5 m no fares LJU · 20 km | 2 h 5 m €180-199 1 stop FLR · 55 km |
| TiranaTIA | 1 h 30 m no fares TRS · 84 km | 1 h 35 m no fares PSA · 86 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 1 h 25 m no fares LJU · 20 km | 1 h 30 m no fares FLR · 55 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 50 m no fares LJU · 20 km | 1 h 55 m €232-255 2 stops FLR · 55 km |
| ZurichZRH | 1 h 15 m no fares LJU · 20 km | 1 h 10 m no fares FLR · 55 km |
| MunichMUC | 1 h 0 m no fares LJU · 20 km | 1 h 15 m no fares FLR · 55 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 2 h 10 m €188-190 LJU · 20 km | 2 h 25 m €154-191 1 stop BLQ · 135 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 5 h 45 m €374-528 2 stops LJU · 20 km | 5 h 55 m no fares 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 2026-09 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 | Ljubljana | Siena |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Slovene | Italian |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CF230 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 | 309 m | 322 m |
| Main airport | Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport (LJU)20 km from centre28 non-stop destinations | Florence Airport, Peretola (FLR)55 km from centre36 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 21 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Ljubljana | Siena |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 284,293 | 52,812 |
| People per km² | 1,736 | 446 |
| Museums within 10 km | 14 | 29 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 3 | 5 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 63 | 25 |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Ljubljana or Siena somewhere new.