Planning to visit Siena's famous Torre del Mangia?
This essential guide has everything you ned to know including how and where to get a ticket (and choose the best one for you), plus details on the climb and the viewpoints!
Named after a spendthrift, gluttonous bell-clanger, the Torre del Mangia dominates the skyline of Siena.
The third or fourth tallest tower in Italy - depending on who you ask - its construction by a pair of brothers in the 14th century was both a feat or architecture and engineering, and based on an incredibly modern concept for the pre-Enlightenment age.
This sleek, elegant tower of red brick would stand eye-to-eye (or bell-to-bell) with Siena's Cathedral striped campanile across the city. For the progressive city, its tower of the civic government would reach the same height heavenward as the church, representing that secular, civil power was as important on earth as religious.
A balance of god and men.
In this post, we've shared all the essential context and information to help you plan your visit and climb the Torre del Mangia. One of the most popular things to do in this gorgeous Tusacan city, it requires a little preparation and a bit of perspiration to complete the narrow, 400+ step to reach the summit and enjoy stupendous, uninterrupted views of Siena and beyond.
This is how to visit and climb Torre del Mangia in Siena.
Torre del Mangia Essentials
/ Fourth tallest tower in Italy at 102 metres
/ Rises from Piazza del Campo in Siena
/ €10 to climb, but combi-tickets available
/ Open daily with extended hours in summer
/ Tickets must be bought in person for a specific timeslot
/ No lift and not wheelchair accessible.
A Brief History of the Tower of Mangia
If you haven’t been to Italy before, you’ll quickly learn that medieval Italians absolutely bloody loved a tower - and not just those of the leaning variety in Pisa. Usually built by powerful families, the higher the tower, the wealthier the status you'd project (hello Trump Tower!), but many of the structures didn’t survive to the present day.
Torre del Mangia is actually quite exceptional in this regard, in that it was a civic rather than a feudal structure, built with a distinct aim to underscore a balance of power between government and church, rather than assert the dominance or power of a single family in a region.
Works started in 1338, and the tower was built in just a decade to the designs of two architect brothers (Muccio and Francesco Di Rinaldo). Part of the Palazzo Publico town hall, it dominates Siena’s large, main square - the Piazza del Campo - and has come to be as much a symbol of the city as its famous annual horserace and beautiful cathedral.
Standing beneath it, it really is quite remarkable how it was built that long ago, and how it has stood this long (especially following a disastrous earthquake in 1798).
You will read few different versions of its official height though, and it’s all to do with a lighting rod.
With it, the tower reaches 102-metre / 334-feet figure at its tip, topping it up quite a bit from the 87-metre mark it reaches without it! This makes it only the fourth tallest historic tower in Italy, with Torrazzo of Cremona (112m), Bologna’s leaning Torre degli Asinelli (97.2m), and the Arnolfo Tower of Florence (94m) all topping it. Interestingly, it is technically a taller structure than the Cathedral’s bellower, but they reach the same height due to the latter standing on a slight hill.
You see? The height of a tower really did mean a lot to Italians.
Beyond the secular aims of the architecture and obsession with heights, the most curious piece of history relates to how the civic tower got its name.
Giovanni di Balduccio was one of the tower’s first bell ringers, and gained a reputation as a man who wasted all his wages on good food. This led to the nickname of Mangiaguadagni - the earnings eater - which was abbreviated down to Mangia.
Now, Signor di Balduccio not only had an approach which we can fully get behind, but also fully understand given that Italian food is the best in the world. Most importantly, he also seemed to get the last laugh with his mocking nickname attached to most famous landmark of Siena for an eternity.
Good food, a reputation, and going down in local history for ever; perhaps it was all money well-spent after all!
*we’ve looked and looked but can’t actually find out what the tower was called BEFORE Giovanni’s habits became widespread local knowledge and the nickname stuck.
Torre del Mangia Tickets + Opening Hours
Entrance to the tower is ticketed, and only permitted in accompanied small groups at specific timeslots.
Most importantly, at time of writing, you are only able to purchase tickets for the Torre del Mangia in person at the main ticket office in the Palazzo Publico; there is no option to reserve or buy a ticket in advance online, and no option to book a timeslot.
The Tower is not included on the Siena OPA Si Pass, which covers the Duomo and several other popular things to do in Siena.
Based on our experience and the number of people we saw get turned away as we waited to climb the tower for early sunset, you should plan ahead and turn up in the morning to secure yourself a ticket for that day: as tickets are allocated for specific daily timeslots, the earlier you buy it, the better chance you have of getting the time you actually want.
As the tower has a maximum daily capacity, and group numbers per time slot are also capped, tickets do sell out frequently.
As far as we can recall, you also cannot purchase / reserve a ticket in person at the office for the next day or later in the week (please let us know in the comments if that's no longer the case though).
The is ticket office is inside the Palazzo Publico in the Piazza del Campo. There are a few doors to choose from, but the right one's jus to the right of the tower base and usually got a sign outside it - find it here on Google Maps. The two ticket desk windows are straight ahead when you enter!
Tip // Remember to look up when standing in the ticket office courtyard - the super-sized crenellated postage stamp opening above with swallow flying past the tower in one corner is one of our favourite scenes to photograph in the city.
Torre del Mangia Tickets
Siena does many things well, but clear, consolidated systems is not one of them.
In short, there a bewildering and overly convoluted array of options for purchasing Torre del Mangia tickets, due to the possibility to visit it as a stand-alone attraction or combine it with several others attractions within the Palazzo Publico.
Therefore, we recommend you decide you budget + preferences before you arrive at the ticket office to save yourself time and confusion (the staff at the two ticket desks do speak English, but there's often a queue).
Torre del Mangia Ticket Options
Just the tower
Single entry adult ticket | €10
Family ticket | 2 adults + children from 11-18* | €25
Combined Ticket (biglietti cumulativi)
Museo Civico + Torre del Mangia | €15
Civitas Senensium Ticket
Museo Civico + Santa Maria della Scala +Torre del Mangia | €20
Family ticket | 2 adults + children from 11-18* | €40
Integrated Tickets (Biglietti Integrati)
Museo Civico + Santa Maria della Scala + Museo Civico + Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena + Torre del Mangia | €25
*Children up to 11 years old have free entry
For what it's worth, the Santa Maria della Scala gallery and museum was one of our absolute favourite things to do in Siena, and we highly recommend visiting it (a standalone ticket for it is €8-9). We bought the Civitas Senensium Ticket, but the Museo Civico was perhaps the least memorable of the three included activities (we also were running out of time that day, so only had an hour for it).
Remember, Torre del Mangia is not included in the other convoluted but necessary ticketing system: the OPA Si Pass. We break it down for you in clear, simple terms in our ‘Quick Guide to the OPA Is Pass in Siena’.
The meeting point and entry to the staircase for the tower climb is in the same place as the ticket office and you should arrive in good time before your time slot start. Every visitor has to check in their bags in the lockers located on the first level of the tower (it's very obvious when you're there). You get an individual locker with a key, and there are security cameras in place. You can still take up your mobile phone and cameras, but we recommend leaving any hats down in the locker as it gets quite windy at the top.
Opening Hours
From 1st March to 31st October, the ticket office hours are Monday-Sunday, 10am-7pm
The ticket office is shut between 1.45-2.30pm, and closes at 6.15pm.
The specific timeslots to go up the tower are 10:00 / 10:45 / 11:30 / 12:15 / 13:00 / 14:30 / 15:15 / 16:00 / 16:45 / 17:30 / 18.15.
Each group has 30-minutes in total to go up, enjoy the views, and come back down.
Remember, you book your specific timeslot at the same time as purchasing your ticket - you may get lucky and there's availability for the next one, but this is unlikely to be the case during the busy summer season. There are also longer queues the later you arrive in the day.
Outside of the main season, from 1st November - 28th February, the ticket office is open from 10am-1pm, then 1.45-3.15pm (with last climbing slot for the tower also at 3.15pm).
If visiting in August, it's super important to know that the opening hours of the tower will be affected by the set-up of the Palio horserace, and the raceday itself. If visiting in and around the 15th August, it's best to check up-to-date info on the official website.
Climbing The Torre del Mangia + Views
An obligatory rite of passage in almost every Italian city is a walk up a narrow staircase to reach the top of a campanile or duomo. We're lucky enough to have done this all over the place - including Florence, Lucca, Pisa, Modena, and Bologna - but the Torre del Mangia was probably the darkest and narrowest ascent.
Composed of austere red brick, with no opulence or grandeur to it, the single-file procession up the 400+ steps will make you a bit sweaty and put you out of puff, but there are some small openings on the way up fro a breeze, a breather, or a seductive sample of the views to come.
Just go at your own pace, and be considerate of others who are struggling; it should take you no more than 10 minutes, but can be done much quicker, giving you more time at the top. There's no lift and it's not wheelchair accessible.
We also think it's best to avoid doing this straight after a particularly long or indulgent lunch - which was perhaps the approach of the tower's namesake?
The good news is that every step is most certainly worth it: the panoramic views from all four sides are just wonderful! As well as the terracotta rooftop clusters of Siena's seven neighbourhoods, the Duomo, the ant-like formations directly below in the Piazza del Campo, and the rolling Tuscan Hills and countryside beyond.
In a city with so many wonderful viewpoints, those from the Mangia Tower are certainly some of the best.
The bad news is that you do have to savour every moment and vista, as the maximum permitted time at the top for every group is 15-minutes. Though brief, it's definitely enough to get some lovely photos and contemplate every angle, but it does mean you can't dilly-dally too much. As it's quite a cramped space at the top of Torre del Mangia, you do also need to be considerate of everyone else's experience, and don't 'hog' one spot for too long.
Also, don’t be a dick and throw anything over.
The staff at the top are strict about enforcing the 15-minute limit and will herd everyone down, quite insistently for any stragglers, to make sure the next group can get up.
Travel Tip // Remember that to get the best photos of the tower, you need to go elsewhere. Siena truly is blessed with several stunning, and quite distinct vistas, with each of them adding a new dimension to your appreciation and understanding of its history.
We’ve shared the most popular as well as our favourite, lesser-known viewpoints, in our main destination guide: 13 Wonderful Things To Do in Siena.
