VacationSelector
The Red Tower and the harbour, Alanya
AlanyaThe Red Tower and the harbour
The Parthenon on the Acropolis, Athens
AthensThe Parthenon on the Acropolis

Photos: Alanya by Atlantic Ambience, Pexels License; Athens by Ranjeet Kumar Singh, Pexels License.

Alanya or Athens?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Alanya for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Alanya’s own page.

Choose Athens for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Athens’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Alanya 84, Athens 70: Alanya leads by 14 points.
Food & drink. Alanya 43, Athens 78: Athens leads by 35 points.
Culture & sights. Alanya 44, Athens 88: Athens leads by 44 points.
Nightlife. Alanya 58, Athens 80: Athens leads by 22 points.
Nature & outdoors. Alanya 68, Athens 64: Alanya leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Alanya 62, Athens 85: Athens leads by 23 points.
Good for families. Alanya 70, Athens 58: Alanya leads by 12 points.
Getting around. Alanya 50, Athens 66: Athens leads by 16 points.
Shopping & style. Alanya 34, Athens 55: Athens leads by 21 points.
Affordability. Alanya 65, Athens 56: Alanya leads by 9 points.
Live music & performing arts. Alanya 15, Athens 64: Athens leads by 49 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Alanya 56, Athens 42: Alanya leads by 14 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Alanya and Athens.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Alanya
54match

Wins on beaches and wellness with your weighting.

Athens
Best match
67match

Wins on live music and the arts and culture and sights with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Alanya in July

32 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
3 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Athens in July

34 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
7 mmrain in the month
13 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
AlanyaAthens

Where the figures come from

Alanya has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Alanya: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Athens: 1991-2020 normals, Athens / Athenai / Pláka (2.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAlanyaAthens
Official languageTurkishGreek
CurrencyTurkish Lira (TRY)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+3UTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation10 m74 m
Main airportGazipaşa-Alanya Airport (GZP)38 km from centre22 non-stop destinationsAthens Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport (ATH)20 km from centre173 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasureAlanyaAthens
City population364,180643,452
People per km²22816,499
Museums within 10 km288
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02
Swim season, months above 21 °C7 months5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Alanya or Athens somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Non-stop route lists from the "Airlines and destinations" tables on English Wikipedia airport articles, by Wikipedia contributors, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Currency from the ISO 4217 register maintained by SIX, cross-checked against country data from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Price level from World Bank open data (PPP conversion factor for private consumption and official exchange rate), CC BY 4.0. Time zones from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); clock offsets computed from the IANA time zone database. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.