Avignon or Pisa?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on places to eat and nature & day trips 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 the trip is about eating and looking: a much wider range of kitchens from a similar number of restaurants, more UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, and far more protected country around it.
Choose Pisa if you want the coast within reach: four months of sea warm enough to swim in, more museums, more places to drink near the centre, and a more walkable spread of sights.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Pisa leads by 21 points.21
| Avignon | Pisa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 21 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 4 |
| Beaches 10 km | 1 | 1 |
| Coast distance | 55 km | 10 km |
| Water distance | — | 10 km |
Places to eat. Avignon leads by 10 points.10
| Avignon | Pisa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 44 | 34 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 336 | 379 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 18 | 9 |
Museums & heritage. Avignon and Pisa are level on 55.
| Avignon | Pisa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 55 | 55 |
| Museums within 10 km | 17 | 27 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 16 | 22 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 94 | 81 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 6 | 3 |
Nightlife. Pisa leads by 12 points.12
| Avignon | Pisa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 16 | 28 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 115 | 232 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 97 | 203 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 84 | 88 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 4 | 3 |
Nature & day trips. Avignon leads by 5 points.5
| Avignon | Pisa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 44 | 39 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 36 | 9 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 31 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 65 |
| Park area within 2 km | 23 hectares | 40 hectares |
Good for families. Pisa leads by 5 points.5
| Avignon | Pisa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 42 | 47 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 15 | 20 |
| Park area within 2 km | 23 hectares | 40 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 4 | 2 |
Sights concentration. Pisa leads by 7 points.7
| Avignon | Pisa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 40 | 47 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 40 | 58 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Pisa leads by 6 points.6
| Avignon | Pisa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 68 |
| Price level global | 73.7 | 64.9 |
| Daily budget | €160 | €155 |
Year-round weather. Avignon and Pisa are level on 70.
| Avignon | Pisa | |
|---|---|---|
| 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 draws on a much wider range of kitchens, from a similar number of restaurants near the centre. It has somewhat more nightclubs than Pisa, 36% protected land around it against 9%, and 6 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against 3.
Pisa has the sea within reach: four months with water at 21°C or more, up to 25°C, where Avignon has none. It also has about twice as many places to drink, most of them near the centre, and about twice as much park space.
Where they are alike
The weather is close to identical: both run daytime highs of about 11-31°C across the year, January coolest in each, and both get two months at 40mm of rain or less.
Heritage is the other level pairing: Pisa has about twice as many museums, Avignon more UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, and either way there is enough looking to fill the time. Nature, family appeal and the price level sit close as well, differently made up in each.
Which traveller are you?
Eating and drinking through a long weekend: Avignon, for the wider range of kitchens from a similar number of restaurants. If the evening matters more than the meal, Pisa has about twice as many places to drink, most near the centre.
A family with a fortnight in summer: Pisa, for sea at 21°C or more across four months, park space near the centre and more attractions in walking range. Avignon answers with 4 theme parks within reach.
Anyone planning to drive out: Avignon, with 36% of the surrounding land protected against 9%, and twice the UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach. Pisa keeps more of its interest inside the city.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €160 and €155, are national estimates for the two countries, covering restaurant and hotel price levels rather than either city. A much-visited city can sit far from its country's average, by more than the gap between these two figures, so they say nothing about which trip costs less.
Pisa's advantage at the coast rests on sea temperature, not coastline: both have 1 beach nearby, and the months when the water is warmest are also the busiest. The two weather profiles look alike, which hides autumn, when Pisa is the wetter of the two by a clear margin.
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). Pisa: 1991-2020 normals, Pisa / S. Giusto (3.9 km from centre).
Avignon comes good early, with 24°C by May and 31°C in July, and rain at midsummer down to 34mm. Late spring is the calmer half of that window. Its autumn arrives wet, so September onward reads as a different trip.
Pisa's window sits later. July and August bring the sea to 24-25°C with rain of only 32-35mm. Its autumn is the wetter of the two, 125mm in October, so late trips favour Avignon.
Getting there
| Flying from | Avignon | Pisa |
|---|---|---|
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 25 m €110-119 MRS · 65 km | 1 h 40 m no fares PSA · 4 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 45 m no fares FNI · 38 km | 2 h 5 m €48-62 PSA · 4 km |
| TiranaTIA | 2 h 5 m no fares MRS · 65 km | 1 h 35 m no fares PSA · 4 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 25 m no fares MRS · 65 km | 55 m €136-139 1 stop FLR · 65 km |
| PalermoPMO | 1 h 40 m no fares MRS · 65 km | 1 h 25 m no fares PSA · 4 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 50 m no fares MRS · 65 km | 1 h 55 m €210-262 1 stop PSA · 4 km |
| NantesNTE | 1 h 30 m €72-162 MRS · 65 km | 1 h 55 m no fares FLR · 65 km |
| MadridMAD | 1 h 35 m no fares MRS · 65 km | 2 h 5 m €88-193 PSA · 4 km |
| BordeauxBOD | 1 h 15 m no fares MRS · 65 km | 1 h 45 m no fares FLR · 65 km |
| MarrakechRAK | 2 h 45 m no fares FNI · 38 km | 3 h 10 m no fares PSA · 4 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 | Pisa |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | 4 m |
| Main airport | Marseille Provence Airport (MRS)65 km from centre125 non-stop destinations | Pisa International Airport (PSA)4 km from centre81 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Avignon | Pisa |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 92,188 | 88,737 |
| People per km² | 1,420 | 479 |
| Museums within 10 km | 11 | 27 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 6 | 3 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 36 | 29 |
| 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 Pisa somewhere new.