Pisa 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 beaches & swimming and nature & day trips with your weighting.
Wins on museums & heritage and sights concentration 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 Pisa if you want town and coast in one base: a beach within reach, sea warm enough for swimming through the summer, protected countryside around it and family attractions including 2 theme parks.
Choose Siena if museums and walkable heritage are the point of the trip. It holds about twice as many museums, more notable places within walking distance of the centre, and much quieter evenings.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Pisa leads by 21 points.21
| Pisa | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 21 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 4 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 1 | 0 |
| Coast distance | 10 km | 64 km |
| Water distance | 10 km | — |
Places to eat. Pisa leads by 2 points.2
| Pisa | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 34 | 32 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 379 | 242 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 9 | 11 |
Museums & heritage. Siena leads by 16 points.16
| Pisa | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 55 | 71 |
| Museums within 10 km | 27 | 55 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 22 | 51 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 81 | 93 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 3 | 5 |
Nightlife. Pisa leads by 11 points.11
| Pisa | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 28 | 17 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 232 | 142 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 203 | 119 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 88 | 84 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 3 | 1 |
Nature & day trips. Pisa leads by 20 points.20
| Pisa | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 39 | 19 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 9 | 3 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 65 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 40 hectares | 29 hectares |
Good for families. Pisa leads by 16 points.16
| Pisa | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 47 | 31 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 20 | 13 |
| Park area within 2 km | 40 hectares | 29 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 2 | 0 |
Sights concentration. Siena leads by 3 points.3
| Pisa | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 47 | 50 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 58 | 69 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Pisa and Siena are level on 68.
| Pisa | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 68 |
| Price level global | 64.9 | 64.9 |
| Daily budget | €155 | €155 |
Year-round weather. Pisa leads by 6 points.6
| Pisa | Siena | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 70 | 64 |
| Monthly daytime high | 11.4 °C to 30.3 °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
Pisa is the one with water: a single beach nearby and sea at 21°C or more for four months of the year, where Siena has neither. It also has more open country around it, with 9% of the surrounding land protected against 3% at Siena, more park space near the centre, and 2 theme parks within reach where Siena has none.
Siena is the stronger heritage stop, with about twice as many museums as Pisa and 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against 3.
Where they are alike
Neither is a destination for eating out. Pisa has about twice as many restaurants near the centre, Siena a wider range of kitchens, so the two end up much alike on the table.
Both are compact, with the centre covered on foot and Siena holding somewhat more notable places within walking distance. Their weather runs on the same pattern too, hot summers and mild winters, 9-31°C across the year in Siena against 11-30°C in Pisa.
Which traveller are you?
Families do better in Pisa: about twice as many tourist attractions near the centre as Siena, more park space, 2 theme parks within reach and a beach with sea at 21°C or more in summer.
A traveller who came for museums and old streets should pick Siena, with roughly twice as many museums as Pisa, 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against 3, and more notable places within walking distance.
Anyone wanting evenings out is better off in Pisa, with about twice as many places to drink and three times as many nightclubs, most of them near the centre; Siena's nights are quiet.
What the numbers don't tell you
The value comparison here carries no information. Both cities sit at the same national price level by construction, so nothing in it says which costs less on the ground, and the €155 daily budget beside it is one national estimate rather than a measurement of either place.
No weather station near Siena records sunshine hours, so that figure is missing rather than low: its monthly picture rests on temperature and rainfall alone, and sunshine cannot be compared between the two. Pisa's coastal advantage also rests on a single beach and four months of swimmable sea, which are the months when it is busiest.
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. Pisa: 1991-2020 normals, Pisa / S. Giusto (3.9 km from centre). Siena: 2006-2017 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Arezzo (45 km from centre).
Pisa's window is June to August: highs of 27-30°C, sea at 22-25°C and the driest stretch of the year, at 32-35mm. From September the rain returns in force and stays through autumn.
Siena is better in spring and early autumn, with highs of 20-28°C from April to June and 26°C in September, though 103mm of rain comes with that month. Its summer highs reach 31°C, hotter than Pisa's, with no sea to cool off in.
Getting there
| Flying from | Pisa | Siena |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 5 m €48-62 PSA · 4 km | 2 h 5 m €180-199 1 stop FLR · 55 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 40 m no fares PSA · 4 km | 1 h 40 m €143-159 FLR · 55 km |
| TiranaTIA | 1 h 35 m no fares PSA · 4 km | 1 h 35 m no fares PSA · 86 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 55 m €136-139 1 stop FLR · 65 km | 55 m €136-139 1 stop FLR · 55 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 55 m €210-262 1 stop PSA · 4 km | 1 h 55 m €232-255 2 stops FLR · 55 km |
| CataniaCTA | 1 h 35 m €55-66 PSA · 4 km | 1 h 35 m €135-156 FLR · 55 km |
| PalermoPMO | 1 h 25 m no fares PSA · 4 km | 1 h 25 m no fares FLR · 55 km |
| BariBRI | 1 h 20 m no fares PSA · 4 km | 1 h 20 m no fares PSA · 86 km |
| BrindisiBDS | 1 h 30 m no fares PSA · 4 km | 1 h 30 m no fares PSA · 86 km |
| MarrakechRAK | 3 h 10 m no fares PSA · 4 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 2026-09 to 2026-09, 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 | Pisa | 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 | 4 m | 322 m |
| Main airport | Pisa International Airport (PSA)4 km from centre81 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 | Pisa | Siena |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 88,737 | 52,812 |
| People per km² | 479 | 446 |
| Museums within 10 km | 27 | 29 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 3 | 5 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 29 | 25 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 4 months | – |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Pisa or Siena somewhere new.