What is the Siena outdoor escape game?
The Siena outdoor escape game takes the escape room into the brick streets of the old town: a puzzle waits at each of the 10 landmarks, and your phone holds the whole game. Allow about 2 hours, of which just 30 minutes are spent walking, since the route covers only 2 km inside the largely car-free centre.
The puzzles grow out of what Siena built: the black-and-white marble bands of the Duomo, the arches of the Facciatone left standing when the New Cathedral was abandoned, the shell-shaped Campo divided into nine sections, the slender Torre del Mangia above the Palazzo Pubblico and the Latin inscription running across the Loggia del Papa. Each puzzle is self-contained, and up to three levels of hints wait behind it.
- Durationabout 2 hours
- Walkingabout 30 min · 2 km
- Stops10
- LanguagesEnglish, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch
What you do on the escape game
Solve on the spot
Each landmark sets one puzzle, answered from what is in front of you. Logic and observation, nothing to memorise.
Count and compare
Clues sit in marble stripes, inscriptions, coats of arms and the divisions of the square underfoot.
Walk very little
Google Maps leads from one landmark to the next: 30 minutes of walking in total, over 2 km of hilly lanes.
Keep your own time
There is no countdown. Call up a hint, sit on the brick slope of the Campo and resume later or on another day.
See the route and attractions →
How it works
- Book online Choose the number of players. Your booking reference arrives by email straight away.
- Get the app Download the World City Trail app from the App Store or Google Play and enter your booking reference.
- Play when you like Start whenever you are ready, walk at your own pace and pause any time. No guide, no fixed schedule.
Who it suits
Friends
Short distances and ten puzzles give a small group a full afternoon of disagreeing productively.
Couples
Two kilometres and plenty to notice, so you are solving and looking rather than hurrying.
Team building
Teams of up to 5 use their own phones, and the compact old town keeps every team within reach of the next landmark.
Good to know
- Bring a charged smartphone with mobile data; a power bank helps.
- Best started in daylight, so you can see the details the puzzles ask about.
- No entry tickets needed: everything happens outside the buildings. Going inside is optional and paid separately.
- Family friendly; children must be accompanied by an adult.
- Not suitable for wheelchair users and difficult with strollers.
- Teams of up to 5 work best; bigger groups split into several teams, one ticket per player.
- Every purchase helps support stray cats and dogs in Greece.
Puzzle route: from the Pinacoteca to Palazzo Piccolomini
10 stops · about 30 min walking · start: Pinacoteca Nazionale · finish: Palazzo Piccolomini
The first puzzle is at the Pinacoteca Nazionale on Via San Pietro and the last at Palazzo Piccolomini on Banchi di Sotto. On the way you take in Santa Maria della Scala opposite the cathedral steps, the Duomo itself, the Facciatone and the Baptistery of San Giovanni below it, then Piazza del Campo with the Palazzo Pubblico and the Torre del Mangia, and the Loggia del Papa. Daylight suits the game best, as the answers are read off façades and paving. In the app the order can be rearranged, and no entry tickets are needed.
Open the route map ↗
1Pinacoteca NazionaleStart
The Pinacoteca Nazionale occupies Gothic palaces on Via San Pietro and holds one of the largest collections of Sienese painting. Look out for the many panels with gold backgrounds from the 13th to the 15th centuries, painted by the masters of the Sienese school.
2Santa Maria della Scala
Facing the steps of the cathedral, Santa Maria della Scala was one of the first hospitals in Europe and cared for pilgrims, the sick and abandoned children for centuries. According to legend it was founded by a cobbler named Sorore, and today the complex is a museum with frescoes showing daily life in the hospital.
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3Siena Cathedral (Duomo)
Siena Cathedral, dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin, is striped inside and out with bands of white and dark marble, the colours of the city's black-and-white coat of arms. Its façade is crowded with statues and carvings, and the floor inside is covered with scenes in inlaid marble.
4Facciatone
The Facciatone is the unfinished façade of the New Cathedral, a huge enlargement that would have turned the existing cathedral into its transept. Work stopped after the Black Death struck Siena in the mid-14th century, and the empty arches still stand beside the Duomo, with a viewing terrace on top.
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5Baptistery of San Giovanni
The Baptistery of San Giovanni lies beneath the eastern end of the cathedral, which was extended out over the slope of the hill. Its Gothic marble façade was never finished, and inside is a baptismal font decorated with bronze reliefs by leading sculptors of the early Renaissance.
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6Piazza del Campo
Piazza del Campo is Siena's main square, a sloping, shell-shaped space paved in red brick and divided into nine sections, said to recall the Council of Nine that governed the city in the late Middle Ages. The Fonte Gaia fountain stands at its upper edge, and twice every summer the square hosts the Palio horse race.
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7Palazzo Pubblico
The Gothic Palazzo Pubblico has been Siena's town hall since the Middle Ages and closes the lower side of the shell-shaped Piazza del Campo, where the Palio horse race is run. Inside, the civic museum holds famous medieval frescoes on the effects of good and bad government.
8Torre del Mangia
The Torre del Mangia is the slender brick bell tower of the Palazzo Pubblico, rising over Piazza del Campo since the 14th century. It is said to be named after its first bell-ringer, nicknamed Mangiaguadagni, the earnings eater, and the stone chapel at its foot was built as a vow after the plague.
9Loggia del Papa
The Loggia del Papa, the Pope's Loggia, was commissioned in the 15th century by Pope Pius II as a gift to his Piccolomini relatives. Look for the Latin inscription running along the top of its three arches, which dedicates it to his family.
10Palazzo PiccolominiFinish
This Renaissance palace on Banchi di Sotto was built in the 15th century for the Piccolomini, the family of Pope Pius II. Its stone façade with large arched windows stands out among Siena's Gothic brick buildings, and today the palace houses the State Archive of Siena.
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