VacationSelector

Avignon or Marseille?

Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Your match

Avignon
41
match

Wins on nature & day trips and museums & heritage with your weighting.

Marseille
✓ Best match
57
match

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 heritage at walking pace and open countryside matter more than the sea: 6 UNESCO-listed places lie within day-trip reach, and most of the land around the city is protected.

Choose Marseille if you want swimming and city evenings: 64 beaches nearby, sea at 21°C or more in high summer, and a far wider choice of places to eat and drink.

Scoreboard

Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.

AvignonMarseille
Beaches & swimming. Marseille leads by 67 points.67
AvignonMarseille
Score067
Swim season months02
Beaches 10 km164
Coast distance55 km0 km
Water distance—0 km
Places to eat. Marseille leads by 31 points.31
AvignonMarseille
Score4475
Restaurants within 2 km of centre3361,320
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km1839
Museums & heritage. Avignon leads by 5 points.5
AvignonMarseille
Score5550
Museums within 10 km1733
Museums within 2 km of centre1623
Share of museums within 2 km %9470
Unesco sites within 50 km61
Nightlife. Marseille leads by 32 points.32
AvignonMarseille
Score1648
Drinking venues within 4 km115544
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre97454
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %8483
Nightclubs within 4 km430
Nature & day trips. Avignon leads by 7 points.7
AvignonMarseille
Score4437
Protected land share 50 km %3615
Landscape blanket share 50 km %3113
Land share of disc %10056
Park area within 2 km23 hectares25 hectares
Good for families. Marseille leads by 2 points.2
AvignonMarseille
Score4244
Tourist attractions within 2 km1517
Park area within 2 km23 hectares25 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km44
Sights concentration. Marseille leads by 18 points.18
AvignonMarseille
Score4058
Notable places within 2 km40111
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Avignon and Marseille are level on 62.
AvignonMarseille
Score6262
Price level global73.773.7
Daily budget€160€160
Year-round weather. Marseille leads by 5 points.5
AvignonMarseille
Score7075
Monthly daytime high11.2 °C to 31.2 °C11.8 °C to 30.7 °C
Monthly rainfall34 mm to 111 mm11 mm to 82 mm
Dry months26
0255075100

Where they differ

Avignon's edge is what surrounds it: 36% of the land around the city is protected against 15% around Marseille, and 6 UNESCO-listed places sit within day-trip reach against Marseille's 1.

Marseille has about three times as many restaurants near the centre and a much wider range of kitchens, many times more bars and clubs, and many more notable places within walking distance of the centre. It also counts 64 beaches nearby against Avignon's 1, so the coast is part of an ordinary day rather than an excursion.

Where they are alike

Families find much the same in both. Each has a similar number of tourist attractions near the centre, comparable park space, and 4 theme parks within reach.

Both also keep enough museum stock for a day indoors, and both sit under the same annual sunshine total of 2883 hours. Daytime highs run about 11-31°C across the year in either city, so the seasonal shape of a trip, and what you can plan outdoors in a given month, is broadly the same.

Which traveller are you?

If swimming shapes the trip, Marseille is the only real answer: 64 beaches nearby and sea at 21-22°C in July and August. Avignon has 1 beach and no month of swimmable sea.

For heritage and days out of town, take Avignon: 6 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach and 36% of the surrounding land protected, against a much smaller protected share around Marseille.

Families can take either. Both have similar numbers of attractions near the centre, comparable park space and 4 theme parks within reach, so the decision comes down to sea access versus countryside.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value figures are identical for the two because they come from a national price level rather than from either city, so the money comparison here carries no information at all. The daily budget of €160 beside them is one national estimate, not a measurement of Avignon or Marseille; decide on the other differences.

Marseille's beach advantage is narrower than 64 beaches suggests. The sea only reaches 21°C or more for two months, and those coincide with the hottest and busiest weeks of the year. Outside them the coast is for walking. Autumn rain falls on both cities, just harder on Avignon.

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.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Avignon
11
13
17
19
24
28
31
31
26
21
15
12
Marseille
12
13
16
19
24
28
31
30
26
21
16
12
Sea temperature, °C
Avignon
No coastline within reach
Marseille
13
13
13
14
16
19
21
22
21
19
17
15
Rainfall, mm
Avignon
65
40
44
64
58
44
34
47
111
90
97
57
Marseille
47
30
29
51
38
28
11
26
82
72
76
41
Daylight, hours per day
Avignon
9
10
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Marseille
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Avignon
5
6
8
8
10
11
12
11
9
6
5
4
Marseille
5
6
8
8
10
11
12
11
9
6
5
4

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Avignon: 1991-2020 normals, Nimes / Courbessac (34 km from centre). Marseille: 1991-2020 normals, Marseille / Marignane (20.6 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Avignon is at its best in May and June, with highs of 24°C and 28°C and rain of 44-58mm. July and August reach 31°C. September is the month to avoid, at 111mm against Marseille's 82mm, and the wet run continues into November.

Marseille holds a longer season. June is its strongest month, July the driest at 11mm, and the sea sits at 21-22°C through July and August, with swimming still workable in September. Autumn rain arrives here too, but less of it.

Getting there

Flying fromAvignonMarseille
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 25 m
€110-119
MRS · 65 km
1 h 25 m
€110-119
MRS · 21 km
NantesNTE
1 h 30 m
€72-162
MRS · 65 km
1 h 30 m
€72-162
MRS · 21 km
BordeauxBOD
1 h 15 m
no fares
MRS · 65 km
1 h 15 m
no fares
MRS · 21 km
AlgiersALG
1 h 35 m
€100-103
MRS · 65 km
1 h 35 m
€100-103
MRS · 21 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
2 h 55 m
€219-245
1 stop
MRS · 65 km
2 h 55 m
€219-245
1 stop
MRS · 21 km
BastiaBIA
1 h 5 m
no fares
MRS · 65 km
1 h 5 m
no fares
MRS · 21 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 45 m
no fares
FNI · 38 km
1 h 50 m
€65-134
1 stop
MRS · 21 km
AjaccioAJA
1 h 5 m
no fares
MRS · 65 km
1 h 5 m
no fares
MRS · 21 km
MontrealYUL, YHU, YMX
7 h 45 m
no fares
MRS · 65 km
7 h 45 m
no fares
MRS · 21 km
SeoulICN, GMP
11 h 35 m
no fares
MRS · 65 km
11 h 35 m
no fares
MRS · 21 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

MeasureAvignonMarseille
Official languageFrenchFrench
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCE230 V, 50 HzCE230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation10 m0 m
Main airportMarseille Provence Airport (MRS)65 km from centre125 non-stop destinationsMarseille Provence Airport (MRS)21 km from centre125 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureAvignonMarseille
City population92,188886,040
People per km²1,4203,683
Museums within 10 km1127
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km61
Distinct cuisines in the centre3693
Swim season, months above 21 °C–2 months

Where else could you go?

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

Browse every destination we have measured

Sources

© OpenStreetMap contributors, data available under the Open Database Licence. Place counts include data from Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA Permissive 2.0), assembled from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and other providers. Notable-place counts from Wikidata (CC0), weighted by Wikipedia language editions. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-08-31. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.