Siena Historic Centre
UNESCO World Heritage Site (Historic Centre Of Siena, 1995) · Siena, Tuscany
A medieval city laid out on three ridges in southern Tuscany, which stopped growing when the Black Death killed half of it in 1348 and so kept its fourteenth-century shape almost entire. Everything turns on the Piazza del Campo, a shell-shaped brick square sloping down to the Palazzo Pubblico and divided into nine wedges for the merchant council that ruled here. Twice a summer it is packed with earth and ten horses race bareback round it for about ninety seconds on behalf of the city's contrade, the seventeen neighbourhood districts that still organise Sienese life. The cathedral up the hill is banded black and white inside and out, holds a Piccolomini library frescoed by Pinturicchio, and has an inlaid marble floor of fifty-six panels that stays carpeted for most of the year and is uncovered for a few weeks each autumn. It is uncovered now, until mid-November, which is the single best reason to come this month rather than another.
Piazza del Campo, Siena, Tuscany, 53100, Italy
The city and Piazza del Campo are open always and free. Cathedral complex roughly 10:00-19:00 from April to October and 10:30-17:30 in winter, with Sunday afternoon hours; during the 2026 floor uncovering, 27 June to 31 October 10:00-19:00 and 1 to 15 November 10:30-17:30. Torre del Mangia and Museo Civico 10:00-19:00 from March to October and shorter in winter. Santa Maria della Scala keeps its own hours.
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