VacationSelector
The Parthenon on the Acropolis, Athens
AthensThe Parthenon on the Acropolis
Cardiff Castle, Cardiff
CardiffCardiff Castle

Photos: Athens by Ranjeet Kumar Singh, Pexels License; Cardiff by Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Athens or Cardiff?

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 Athens for

  • beaches
  • food and drink
  • culture and sights

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

Choose Cardiff for

  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Cardiff’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. Athens 70, Cardiff 30: Athens leads by 40 points.
Food & drink. Athens 78, Cardiff 45: Athens leads by 33 points.
Culture & sights. Athens 88, Cardiff 58: Athens leads by 30 points.
Nightlife. Athens 80, Cardiff 50: Athens leads by 30 points.
Nature & outdoors. Athens 64, Cardiff 70: Cardiff leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Athens 85, Cardiff 72: Athens leads by 13 points.
Good for families. Athens and Cardiff are level on 58.
Getting around. Athens and Cardiff are level on 66.
Shopping & style. Athens 55, Cardiff 50: Athens leads by 5 points.
Affordability. Athens 56, Cardiff 46: Athens leads by 10 points.
Live music & performing arts. Athens 64, Cardiff 57: Athens leads by 7 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Athens 42, Cardiff 27: Athens leads by 15 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Athens and Cardiff.

Your match

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

Athens
Best match
67match

Wins on beaches and food and drink with your weighting.

Cardiff
52match

Wins on nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

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

Cardiff in July

20 °Cdaytime high
13 °Cnight-time low
83 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
17 °Csea
16 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
AthensCardiff

Where the figures come from

Cardiff has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Cardiff's sunshine is measured 83 km from the centre, at Lyneham.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Athens: 1991-2020 normals, Athens / Athenai / Pláka (2.2 km from centre). Cardiff: 1991-2020 normals, Cardiff-Wales Airport (14.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAthensCardiff
Official languageGreekEnglish
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Pound Sterling (GBP)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+2, UTC+3 in summerUTC, UTC+1 in summer
Emergency number112112 or 999
Elevation74 m41 m
Main airportAthens Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport (ATH)20 km from centre173 non-stop destinationsCardiff International Airport (CWL)15 km from centre30 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year15 days8 days

By the numbers

MeasureAthensCardiff
City population643,452383,536
People per km²16,4992,734
Museums within 10 km889
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
Swim season, months above 21 °C5 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

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

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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). 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.