Pisa International Airport to Siena
About 130 km south-east; the practical routes are a coach change in Florence or a hire car, both taking well over two hours.
A medieval city that stopped growing after the plague and kept its shape โ a shell-shaped square where the Palio is run twice a summer, a striped cathedral and streets divided between seventeen contrade.
Every way to get there
Our verdict: for Siena, a private transfer is the easiest door-to-door option (from โฌ200). Travelling light on a budget? The bus is cheapest (from โฌ24) but slower, with a change in the city.
What it costs for your group
The bus is charged per person, while a taxi or private transfer is one price for the whole car โ so the more of you there are, the better door-to-door value looks.
| Group | Bus (per person) | Private transfer | Best value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo ยท 1 traveller | โฌ24 | โฌ200 | Bus |
| Couple ยท 2 travellers | โฌ48 | โฌ200 | Bus |
| Family of 4 ยท 4 travellers | โฌ96 | โฌ200 | Bus |
Which option should you choose?
| If your priority isโฆ | Our pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest price | Bus | From โฌ18, though slower with a change in the city. |
| Speed & comfort | Private transfer | Door-to-door, fixed price, a driver waiting for you. |
| A group of 3โ4 | Transfer or taxi | One flat fare splits cheaper than several bus tickets. |
| A late-night arrival | Transfer or taxi | Both run 24/7 when buses and the tram have stopped. |
By transport mode
Car rental
The best option, especially if Siena is a base for the Val d'Orcia and Chianti. Siena's centre is a strict ZTL โ use the ring car parks, several of which have escalators or lifts into town.
Where to catch it: Around two hours by road via the FlorenceโSiena dual carriageway, with paid car parks and escalators up into the walled centre.
Best for travellers who want to exploreBus / shuttle
Around twenty-five euros and close to three hours with the change. The FlorenceโSiena coach is faster than the train and drops you at Piazza Gramsci inside the walls.
Where to catch it: Sky Bus to Florence, then the fast Siena coach from the terminal near Santa Maria Novella.
Best for solo & budget travellersTrain
The slowest of the three and not obviously cheaper than the coach once the PisaMover is counted. Siena is one of the few Tuscan cities where the bus genuinely beats the train.
Where to catch it: Pisa Centrale to Empoli, change for Siena; the station sits below the city with an escalator system up to the walls.
Best for budget travellers near a stationPrivate transfer
For an agriturismo, send coordinates and ask about the last stretch โ many are down white gravel roads several kilometres long, which some drivers will decline in a low car.
Where to catch it: Mostly booked by people staying at country properties in the Crete Senesi or Chianti rather than in Siena itself.
Best for families, groups & late arrivalsSiena & Pisa in photos
Buying tickets in Pisa
Pisa's connection is the best-engineered of any airport in this guide. The PisaMover is a driverless elevated shuttle running to Pisa Centrale in five minutes for โฌ6, every 5โ10 minutes from around 06:00 to midnight โ no timetable to memorise, no traffic. Buy from the machines by the covered walkway; the ticket also covers the replacement bus if the line is out of service. From Centrale, Tuscany opens up: Florence in about an hour, Lucca in thirty minutes, Livorno and Viareggio in forty. Direct coaches skip the change entirely โ Autostradale's Sky Bus to Florence at โฌ15โ20 in about 70 minutes, and to Lucca at โฌ5โ8 in 30 minutes, both from outside arrivals and cheaper booked online. For Pisa itself the LAM Rossa city bus costs under โฌ3 and stops closer to the Leaning Tower than the PisaMover does, though it is slower. Validate regional train tickets before boarding; the fine is enforced.
Taxi scams & safety in Pisa
Pisa is a low-friction airport and the taxi fares are honest โ โฌ18โ25 into the city on the meter, and around โฌ170 to Florence, which is a real price for a real 85-kilometre journey rather than an opportunistic one. The genuine financial risk here is the ZTL. Florence's restricted zone is among the strictest in Italy, ringed with cameras, and a driver who enters without a permit passes the fine on to you months later through the rental company or the transfer operator. Confirm the drop-off point when booking rather than at the barrier, and give an exact address rather than a landmark. The same applies in miniature at Lucca, where private cars cannot enter the walls at all, and at Siena and San Gimignano, where cars stop at the gates and everything beyond is on foot. If you are heading to the Cinque Terre, do not hire a car: four of the five villages have effectively no parking and the roads down to them are single-track hairpins โ park at La Spezia and take the local train in.
Getting from PSA to Siena
Siena stopped growing in 1348, when the Black Death killed something like half its population and the city never recovered its position against Florence. What that produced is a medieval city preserved almost intact โ a shell-shaped square that slopes to a point, a cathedral in banded marble, and a street plan divided between seventeen contrade that still organise the life of the place.
Getting there is the awkward part
There is no direct route from Pisa Airport. The options are a hire car, about two hours; the Sky Bus to Florence and then the fast coach to Siena, close to three hours with the change; or a train via Empoli, which is slower still. Siena is one of the few Tuscan cities where the bus beats the train comfortably.
The coach from Florence
Autolinee Toscane runs a rapid service from the terminal near Santa Maria Novella that takes about seventy-five minutes and drops at Piazza Gramsci, inside the walls. Total from the airport around โฌ25 and close to three hours. It is the best public option and it is more direct than any train combination.
Why the car wins here
Two hours on the FlorenceโSiena dual carriageway, and then Siena becomes a base for the Val d'Orcia and Chianti, which have essentially no public transport. Pienza, Montalcino, Montepulciano and San Quirico are each within an hour and impossible to link by bus. This is the part of Tuscany that assumes you have driven.
Parking and the escalators
The historic centre is a strict ZTL. Use the car parks on the ring โ several of them have escalators or lifts that carry you up through the hillside into the town, which is a genuinely useful piece of civic engineering given how steep Siena is. San Francesco and Il Campo car parks are the usual choices.
The Campo
Shell-shaped, sloping, paved in brick in nine segments for the Council of Nine that governed the city, with the Palazzo Pubblico and its tower at the low end. People sit on the brick. Twice a summer it is covered in earth and a horse race is run around it.
The Palio, and what it involves
Ten of the seventeen contrade race bareback around the Campo on 2 July and 16 August. It lasts about ninety seconds. The rest of it โ the trial races, the blessing of the horse in the contrada church, the dinners in the streets โ runs for days and is the actual event. The city fills completely and hotels book a year out.
The cathedral, and the floor
Banded black and white marble inside and out, a pulpit by Nicola Pisano, a library painted by Pinturicchio with the colours still fresh. The floor is fifty-six inlaid marble panels made over two centuries, and most of them are covered for most of the year โ they are uncovered for a period in late summer and autumn, and it is worth timing a visit for.
The cathedral that was never finished
Siena began enlarging the Duomo into something that would have dwarfed Florence's, and the plague stopped it. The nave of the unbuilt cathedral stands as a bare wall with windows, and you can climb it โ the Facciatone โ for the best view in the city.
The contrade
Seventeen districts, each with a name, an animal, colours, a church, a museum, a fountain and a fierce loyalty. You know which one you are in from the flags and the plaques. It is not folklore staged for visitors โ membership is by birth and the rivalries are entirely real.
Staying inside the walls
Worth it. Siena empties of day-trippers in the late afternoon and the evening in the Campo is the reason to be here rather than in Florence. Rooms inside the walls are reached on foot up steep lanes, so ask about the walk from the nearest vehicle access.
The countryside beyond
The Crete Senesi start immediately south โ clay hills, cypress lines, isolated farmhouses, the abbey at Monte Oliveto Maggiore. It is the landscape people picture when they picture Tuscany, and it begins about fifteen minutes outside the walls.
