The Most Beautiful Places in Siena
8 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful places in Siena are Siena Cathedral, Piazza del Campo and San Gimignano. The list covers 8 places. Last updated 13 October 2026.
The province of Siena is the southern heart of Tuscany: the rolling clay hills of the Crete Senesi, the cypress-lined slopes of the Val d'Orcia and a scatter of walled hill towns along the old pilgrim road to Rome, the Via Francigena. In the Middle Ages Siena was a proud republic and Florence's great rival, and the decline that followed its defeat left its streets and towns remarkably close to their medieval form. Volcanic heat beneath the south of the province adds hot springs.
In the city, Siena Cathedral is striped in black and white marble, its floor inlaid with marble scenes. Below it, the shell-shaped Piazza del Campo slopes toward the town hall, divided into nine sections in memory of the government of the Nine, and the slender Torre del Mangia rises beside it. Twice each summer the square becomes the track of the Palio horse race.
The countryside answers with its own landmarks. San Gimignano keeps a cluster of medieval tower houses on its hilltop, and Monteriggioni is ringed by a circle of walls and towers that Dante recalled in the Inferno. The Abbey of San Galgano stands roofless in a meadow, its Gothic arches open to the sky. At Bagno Vignoni, the village square is a large stone pool of steaming spring water, and at Bagni San Filippo, hot water has built white limestone cascades in the woods.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Siena Cathedral | Cathedral | ✓ |
| 2 | Piazza del Campo | Square | ✓ |
| 3 | San Gimignano | Most beautiful village | |
| 4 | Torre del Mangia | Bell tower | |
| 5 | Monteriggioni | City walls | |
| 6 | Abbey of San Galgano | Ruins | |
| 7 | Bagno Vignoni | Hot spring | |
| 8 | Bagni San Filippo | Hot spring |
01 Siena Cathedral
Duomo di Siena
Italy · 1.7 km from Siena43.318° N 11.329° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by Anajim from Pixabay Siena's cathedral is the product of a city that wanted to outdo Florence and very nearly did. Built between about 1215 and 1263, it is clad inside and out in bands of white and dark green-black marble, the colours of Siena's black and white coat of arms, with red marble added on the facade.
Did you know? Pinturicchio frescoed the Piccolomini Library between 1502 and 1507; whether Raphael drew some of the designs is still debated.
02 Piazza del Campo
Italy · 1.5 km from Siena43.318° N 11.331° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by Zotx from Pixabay Piazza del Campo is a great tilted shell of red brick at the heart of Siena. Its fan of paving, divided by pale stone strips into nine segments, slopes down towards the Palazzo Pubblico, the Gothic town hall, whose slender brick tower, the Torre del Mangia, rises above the whole city.
Did you know? The Torre del Mangia rises about 102 metres, making it one of the tallest medieval towers in Italy, surpassed only by Cremona's Torrazzo.
03 San Gimignano
Italy · 30 km from Siena43.468° N 11.043° E
Image by Makalu from Pixabay San Gimignano announces itself from miles away across the Val d'Elsa: a hilltop crowned by square stone towers that rise above the vineyards like a cluster of medieval skyscrapers.
Did you know? M. C. Escher depicted the town's celebrated towers in a woodcut titled San Gimignano in 1923.
04 Torre del Mangia
Italy · 1.4 km from Siena43.318° N 11.332° E
Image by roberto_bellasio from Pixabay Siena's great square, the Piazza del Campo, slopes down like a scallop shell towards a single point, and at that point, beside the Palazzo Pubblico, the Torre del Mangia goes straight up.
Did you know? The last Mangia, a travertine warrior carved by Angiolo Bini in 1759, was taken down in 1780 and forgotten in the town hall's storerooms.
05 Monteriggioni
Italy · 12.1 km from Siena43.367° N 11.218° E
Carsten Steger · CC BY-SA 4.0 Seen from the road below, Monteriggioni is a crown of stone set on a low hill: an almost unbroken ring of medieval wall, studded with square towers, enclosing a small village.
Did you know? Siena bought the hilltop from the Da Staggia family, and work began under the podestà Guelfo da Porcari around 1214.
06 Abbey of San Galgano
Abbazia di San Galgano
Italy · 24.4 km from Siena43.149° N 11.155° E
Image by arretium from Pixabay The Cistercian abbey of San Galgano was raised between 1220 and 1268 near the site where the hermit-knight Galgano Guidotti had lived and died, and within decades it had become the most powerful Cistercian foundation in Tuscany, controlling substantial farmland and trade routes around Siena.
Did you know? Successive emperors, Frederick II among them, confirmed the abbey's privileges, which even included the right to mint its own coins.
07 Bagno Vignoni
Italy · 38.8 km from Siena43.028° N 11.619° E
Image by alefolsom from Pixabay Most villages are built around a square; Bagno Vignoni is built around a pool. At the heart of this tiny hamlet in southern Tuscany, where a market place would normally be, lies a large rectangular basin of steaming thermal water, enclosed by old stone houses, with the church of St John the Baptist close by.
Did you know? The cluster of houses around the pool grew out of a castle that once belonged to the Amerighi family.
08 Bagni San Filippo
Italy42.930° N 11.701° E
LigaDue · CC BY-SA 4.0 On the wooded slopes of Monte Amiata in southern Tuscany, hot sulphurous water pours down a stream bed and has coated everything it touches in brilliant white.
Did you know? According to tradition, Philip Benizi hid on Monte Amiata for about three months after a cardinal proposed him as pope during the deadlocked conclave of 1268 to 1271.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful places in Siena?
- On our list, Siena Cathedral ranks first, followed by Piazza del Campo and San Gimignano.
- Why is Piazza del Campo divided into nine sections?
- The nine segments of its brick paving commemorate the Council of Nine, the merchant government that ruled Siena from the late thirteenth to the mid-fourteenth century, when the square was laid out.
- Why does San Gimignano have so many towers?
- In the Middle Ages rival families built tall tower houses as symbols of wealth and power; dozens once stood, and around fourteen survive.
- What is the Palio di Siena?
- The Palio is a bareback horse race run around Piazza del Campo twice each summer, in July and August, between riders representing the city's contrade, or historic districts.
- What kinds of places are there to see in Siena?
- In our collection, the places in Siena are most often hot springs (2), churches (1), cathedrals (1) and bell towers (1).
- How many places are on this list in Siena?
- The list covers 8 places.