Avignon or La Spezia?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Too close to call, 2 points apart
Wins on sights concentration and good for families with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming and nightlife with your weighting.
What matters to you?
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.
The verdict
Choose Avignon if you want a compact centre you can cover on foot, attractions and theme parks that keep children occupied, and protected countryside within day-trip reach.
Choose La Spezia if swimming decides it: 32 beaches within reach and four months of sea warm enough to use, where Avignon has one beach and no season at all.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. La Spezia leads by 73 points.73
| Avignon | La Spezia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 73 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 4 |
| Beaches 10 km | 1 | 32 |
| Coast distance | 55 km | 0 km |
| Water distance | — | 0 km |
Places to eat. Avignon leads by 13 points.13
| Avignon | La Spezia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 44 | 31 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 336 | 235 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 18 | 11 |
Museums & heritage. Avignon leads by 13 points.13
| Avignon | La Spezia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 55 | 42 |
| Museums within 10 km | 17 | 15 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 16 | 10 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 94 | 67 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 6 | 2 |
Nightlife. La Spezia leads by 8 points.8
| Avignon | La Spezia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 16 | 24 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 115 | 208 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 97 | 176 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 84 | 85 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 4 | 1 |
Nature & day trips. La Spezia leads by 8 points.8
| Avignon | La Spezia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 44 | 52 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 36 | 13 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 31 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 51 |
| Park area within 2 km | 23 hectares | 23 hectares |
Good for families. Avignon leads by 22 points.22
| Avignon | La Spezia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 42 | 20 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 15 | 3 |
| Park area within 2 km | 23 hectares | 23 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 4 | 2 |
Sights concentration. Avignon leads by 33 points.33
| Avignon | La Spezia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 40 | 7 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 40 | 6 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. La Spezia leads by 6 points.6
| Avignon | La Spezia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 68 |
| Price level global | 73.7 | 64.9 |
| Daily budget | €160 | €155 |
Year-round weather. Avignon and La Spezia are level on 70.
| Avignon | La Spezia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 70 | 70 |
| Monthly daytime high | 11.2 °C to 31.2 °C | 11.4 °C to 30.3 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 34 mm to 111 mm | 32 mm to 132 mm |
| Dry months | 2 | 2 |
Where they differ
Avignon packs many more notable places into walking distance of the centre, so a day there can be done on foot. It also has many times as many tourist attractions near the centre and 4 theme parks within reach against 2, which counts with children. The countryside around it is better protected too, 36% of the land against 13%.
La Spezia is the one for swimming: 32 beaches nearby against Avignon's 1, and sea reaching 25°C at the height of summer, warm enough for four months.
Where they are alike
Their years look nearly identical: daytime highs run about 11-31°C in both, and each has two months where rain drops to 40mm or less.
They are close elsewhere too. The national daily budget estimates behind them are similar, €160 and €155. Each has a comparable amount of park space near the centre, and in both the places to drink and the clubs sit close to the centre rather than scattered across the city.
Which traveller are you?
Travelling with children: Avignon. It has many times as many tourist attractions near the centre, 4 theme parks within reach against 2, and enough packed into walking distance to fill days without long transfers.
Here to swim: La Spezia. 32 beaches sit within reach and the sea reaches 25°C at its warmest, while Avignon has nothing comparable and no month when swimming is on the table.
Eating and heritage: Avignon. It has somewhat more restaurants near the centre and a much wider range of kitchens, plus 6 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against 2.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €160 and €155, are national estimates of restaurant and hotel price levels, not measurements of Avignon or La Spezia. The gap between them is small, and the distance between any single city and its own national average can be larger, so they cannot tell you which trip will cost more.
La Spezia's beach strength rests on a sea season of four months that coincides with the hottest and busiest part of the year. Outside it the coast is a view rather than a swim, and the wettest months follow straight afterwards.
When should you go?
The figures behind each month. Each row is shaded against that destination's own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.
Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Avignon: 1991-2020 normals, Nimes / Courbessac (34 km from centre). La Spezia: 1991-2020 normals, Pisa / S. Giusto (64.8 km from centre).
Avignon is at its best in late spring, when highs sit at 24-28°C and rain stays moderate. Midsummer is hotter and the driest stretch of its year. September turns wet at 111mm, which shortens the autumn window.
La Spezia's window is June to August, when the sea reaches 22-25°C and July is its driest month at 32mm. Its autumn is wetter than Avignon's, above 125mm in both October and November, so keep the coast for summer.
Getting there
| Flying from | Avignon | La Spezia |
|---|---|---|
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 25 m €110-119 MRS · 65 km | 1 h 40 m no fares PSA · 65 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 45 m no fares FNI · 38 km | 2 h 5 m €48-62 PSA · 65 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 25 m no fares MRS · 65 km | 1 h 10 m no fares GOA · 86 km |
| TiranaTIA | 2 h 5 m no fares MRS · 65 km | 1 h 35 m no fares PSA · 65 km |
| PalermoPMO | 1 h 40 m no fares MRS · 65 km | 1 h 25 m no fares PSA · 65 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 50 m no fares MRS · 65 km | 1 h 55 m €210-262 1 stop PSA · 65 km |
| NantesNTE | 1 h 30 m €72-162 MRS · 65 km | 1 h 55 m no fares FLR · 115 km |
| MadridMAD | 1 h 35 m no fares MRS · 65 km | 2 h 5 m €88-193 PSA · 65 km |
| BordeauxBOD | 1 h 15 m no fares MRS · 65 km | 1 h 45 m no fares FLR · 115 km |
| MarrakechRAK | 2 h 45 m no fares FNI · 38 km | 3 h 10 m no fares PSA · 65 km |
The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-08 to 2026-10, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.
Before you go
| Measure | Avignon | La Spezia |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | French | Italian |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CE230 V, 50 Hz | CFL230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 | 112 |
| Elevation | 10 m | 3 m |
| Main airport | Marseille Provence Airport (MRS)65 km from centre125 non-stop destinations | Pisa International Airport (PSA)65 km from centre81 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Avignon | La Spezia |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 92,188 | 92,119 |
| People per km² | 1,420 | 1,792 |
| Museums within 10 km | 11 | 12 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 6 | 2 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 36 | 22 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | – | 4 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Avignon or La Spezia somewhere new.