Siena or Zagreb?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on museums & heritage and good for families with your weighting.
Wins on nightlife and places to eat 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 Siena for the heritage: somewhat more museums than Zagreb, and 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, in a town of about 53,000 people where the sights sit close together.
Choose Zagreb for the eating and the evenings: roughly twice as many restaurants near the centre, far more bars and clubs, more notable places within walking distance, and more green space and protected land around it.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Siena and Zagreb are level on 0.
| Siena | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 0 | 8 |
| Coast distance | 64 km | 117 km |
| Water distance | — | — |
Places to eat. Zagreb leads by 20 points.20
| Siena | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 32 | 52 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 242 | 374 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 11 | 27 |
Museums & heritage. Siena leads by 26 points.26
| Siena | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 71 | 45 |
| Museums within 10 km | 55 | 41 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 51 | 40 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 93 | 98 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 5 | 0 |
Nightlife. Zagreb leads by 44 points.44
| Siena | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 17 | 61 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 142 | 1,009 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 119 | 571 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 84 | 57 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 1 | 63 |
Nature & day trips. Zagreb leads by 15 points.15
| Siena | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 19 | 34 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 3 | 9 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 29 hectares | 52 hectares |
Good for families. Siena leads by 3 points.3
| Siena | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 31 | 28 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 13 | 7 |
| Park area within 2 km | 29 hectares | 52 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 0 | 0 |
Sights concentration. Zagreb leads by 10 points.10
| Siena | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 50 | 60 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 69 | 122 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Zagreb leads by 12 points.12
| Siena | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 80 |
| Price level global | 64.9 | 48.5 |
| Daily budget | €155 | €138 |
Year-round weather. Siena leads by 2 points.2
| Siena | Zagreb | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 64 | 62 |
| Monthly daytime high | 8.9 °C to 31.3 °C | 5.4 °C to 28.5 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 49 mm to 136 mm | 47 mm to 104 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 0 |
Where they differ
Siena has the stronger heritage case: somewhat more museums than Zagreb, and 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach where Zagreb has none. Its restaurants and bars are few, but almost all of them sit near the centre, so an evening needs little planning.
Zagreb has about twice as many restaurants near the centre and a much wider range of kitchens, along with many times as many bars and nightclubs. Only about half of those are central, so nights out tend to spread beyond the walkable core.
Where they are alike
Neither city is a place to swim. Zagreb has 8 beaches nearby and Siena none, but neither reaches a month of sea at 21°C or more.
The weather runs a similar course in both, warm summers and cool winters, and neither has a month at 40mm of rain or less. For families the two land in much the same place: no theme park within reach, Siena leaning on attractions near the centre, Zagreb on park space.
Which traveller are you?
A traveller after museums, old streets and a base for day trips should take Siena: more museums than Zagreb, 5 UNESCO-listed places within reach, and a centre small enough to cover on foot.
Anyone who plans their days around eating and late evenings should take Zagreb: about twice as many restaurants near the centre, a much wider range of kitchens, and many times as many bars and clubs.
Walkers and users of green space lean to Zagreb as well, with 9% of the surrounding land protected against 3% around Siena, and about twice as much park space centrally. Neither has a theme park within reach.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €155 for Italy and €138 for Croatia, are national estimates of restaurant and hotel price levels rather than measurements of either city. A capital, or a heavily visited small town, can sit further from its own country's average than the two countries sit from each other, so read them as background, not as a verdict on what your trip will cost.
No weather station near Siena records sunshine hours, so that figure is missing rather than low, and its monthly picture rests on temperature and rainfall alone. Zagreb's 8 nearby beaches come without any month of sea at 21°C or more.
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. Siena: 2006-2017 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Arezzo (45 km from centre). Zagreb: 1991-2020 normals, Zagreb / Gric (0.6 km from centre).
Siena is at its best in late spring, around 23-28°C, and again in September at 26°C, though 103mm of rain falls that month. Peak summer touches 31°C and is the driest stretch of the year, at 49-53mm.
Zagreb's good spell runs longer, from May into August at 23-29°C, but summer rain of 76-90mm sits above Siena's for the same months, and its winter is the colder of the two, at 5°C.
Getting there
| Flying from | Siena | Zagreb |
|---|---|---|
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 40 m €143-159 FLR · 55 km | 1 h 55 m no fares ZAG · 11 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 5 m €180-199 1 stop FLR · 55 km | 2 h 15 m no fares ZAG · 11 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 1 h 30 m no fares FLR · 55 km | 1 h 30 m no fares ZAG · 11 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 55 m €232-255 2 stops FLR · 55 km | 2 h 0 m no fares ZAG · 11 km |
| MunichMUC | 1 h 15 m no fares FLR · 55 km | 1 h 10 m no fares ZAG · 11 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 2 h 25 m €154-191 1 stop BLQ · 135 km | 2 h 0 m €153-254 ZAG · 11 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 55 m €136-139 1 stop FLR · 55 km | 1 h 20 m no fares ZAG · 11 km |
| ZurichZRH | 1 h 10 m no fares FLR · 55 km | 1 h 25 m no fares ZAG · 11 km |
| MadridMAD | 2 h 10 m no fares FLR · 55 km | 2 h 40 m no fares ZAG · 11 km |
| ViennaVIE | 1 h 25 m €185-255 1 stop FLR · 55 km | 1 h 0 m no fares ZAG · 11 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 | Siena | Zagreb |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Italian | Croatian |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CFL230 V, 50 Hz | CF230 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 | 322 m | 127 m |
| Main airport | Florence Airport, Peretola (FLR)55 km from centre36 non-stop destinations | Zagreb Franjo Tuđman International Airport (ZAG)11 km from centre60 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 14 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Siena | Zagreb |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 52,812 | 767,131 |
| People per km² | 446 | – |
| Museums within 10 km | 29 | 27 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 5 | 0 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 25 | 42 |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Siena or Zagreb somewhere new.