Siena Cathedral

Siena Cathedral tickets: the Opa Si Pass for the whole complex

Siena Cathedral has a floor made of pictures in inlaid marble, laid by more than 40 artists between the 14th and the 19th centuries, and this year it’s uncovered until 15 November. Siena Cathedral tickets come as one pass, the Opa Si Pass. It takes in the cathedral, the Piccolomini Library, the crypt, the baptistery and the cathedral museum, plus the climb up the Facciatone, the wall of a cathedral Siena never finished.

The Opa Si Pass we sell costs €19.50, with booking and handling costs included and an audio guide app in English, Italian, French, German or Spanish. Children have their own price at checkout, €7. The ticket can’t be cancelled, so buy it once your day in Siena is fixed.

Once you have it, the pass is valid for three consecutive days, according to the cathedral, and Santa Maria della Scala isn’t on it. The cathedral reckons on about two hours for the whole route. Visitors with a disability go in free along with one companion, and the cathedral has a ramp on its left side, though the museum, the crypt and the baptistery have no step-free access.

The Gate of Heaven: Siena Cathedral’s roof walk, on a ticket of its own

The one part of the complex the Opa Si Pass leaves out is the Porta del Cielo, the Gate of Heaven, which takes you up onto the cathedral roofs. The cathedral sells it online and at its ticket offices, on Piazza Duomo and at the Dear Guests Visitor Center on Via di Città, near Piazza del Campo, while places last. It costs €21, €6 for children aged 7 to 11 and nothing for under-7s, and it includes everything on the Opa Si Pass, so it replaces the pass rather than going on top of it.

Visits run from 1 March to 6 January, each at a set time and in small groups, 18 people at a time according to one guide, so it’s worth booking a week or two ahead, and earlier in July and August. The roof walk keeps its own hours, 10:30 to 18:00 until 15 November and 10:30 to 17:30 from 16 November to 24 December. It starts with a spiral staircase and gives you about 25 minutes on the roofs.

Siena Cathedral and the Florence passes: not on the Firenze Card

The Firenze Card doesn’t cover Siena Cathedral: its museums are all in Florence and the towns around it, such as Fiesole and Prato. For the Florence half of your trip, Firenze Card and Florence’s other passes sets out what each pass gives you there.

Siena Cathedral opening hours, and the late start on Sundays

The museum, the library and the Facciatone follow those hours, but on Sundays and public holidays the cathedral itself keeps its own. Until 15 November it opens at 10:00, half an hour before the rest of the complex, but from 16 November it only opens at 13:30, so on a Sunday trip it’s worth starting with the museum and the Facciatone and leaving the cathedral for the afternoon.

Religious ceremonies can change those times. On weekdays Mass is at 9:30 in the chapel of the Madonna del Voto, before the visit opens, and while the floor is uncovered it moves to the church of the Santissima Annunziata.

There’s a security check at the cathedral door, and a booked ticket doesn’t let you skip it. The stairs up the Facciatone run one way, and the wait at the bottom can reach half an hour in the middle of the day, so go up early or late. Knees and shoulders covered is the safe choice for the cathedral.

Inside Siena Cathedral: the marble floor and the Piccolomini Library

The floor is made of 56 panels, and it’s the reason to time your trip: it’s covered for most of the year to protect it and uncovered on fixed dates, which in 2026 run from 27 June to 31 July and from 18 August to 15 November. This year’s opening is called Il Sommo Bene, “the highest good”, and marks 800 years since the death of St Francis in 1226.

Above the floor stands the pulpit, carved between 1265 and 1268 by the sculptor Nicola Pisano, and around the nave are statues by Michelangelo, Donatello and Bernini.

Off the nave, the Piccolomini Library is one room with every wall painted. The frescoes are by Pinturicchio, from 1503 to 1508, and one guide counts the young Raphael among his assistants. In the middle of the room stands a marble group of the Three Graces.

The Museo dell’Opera, the crypt and the view from the Facciatone

All of this sits in a cathedral that was meant to be much bigger. In the 14th century Siena set out to double it, with the present church as one part of a new building. The plague of 1348 stopped the work, and the walls of the new cathedral were left standing. One of them, the unfinished facade, is the Facciatone, and the Opa Si Pass takes you up it for the view over the city.

The Museo dell’Opera, the cathedral museum, keeps works taken from the cathedral itself. Look for the stained-glass window and the altarpiece, both by the painter Duccio.

Below the cathedral, the crypt was rediscovered and restored in 1999, and its walls are covered in frescoes. The baptistery is on the same pass, and so is the Oratory of San Bernardino on the days it’s open.

Getting to Siena Cathedral from Florence by bus or train

From Florence, the bus to take is the Autolinee Toscane 131 Rapida, the faster version of the line, which leaves from Firenze Autostazione, the bus station, and takes about 65 to 80 minutes. The train from Santa Maria Novella also works, but it drops you below the historic centre.

In Siena the cathedral is in the old town, where you get around on foot, about 5 to 10 minutes’ walk from the centre and Piazza del Campo.