VacationSelector

Barcelona or Toulouse?

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

Your match

Barcelona
✓ Best match
71
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and nightlife with your weighting.

Toulouse
48
match

Wins on good for families 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 Barcelona if you want the sea in the trip: 20 beaches nearby and warm swimming through late summer, plus far more places to eat and to drink after dark.

Choose Toulouse if you prefer a smaller city where the attractions and museums sit tightly around the centre, you are happy walking rather than planning, and a trip without a coast suits you.

Scoreboard

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

BarcelonaToulouse
Beaches & swimming. Barcelona leads by 65 points.65
BarcelonaToulouse
Score650
Swim season months30
Beaches 10 km201
Coast distance2 km145 km
Water distance2 km—
Places to eat. Barcelona leads by 20 points.20
BarcelonaToulouse
Score9070
Restaurants within 2 km of centre3,786962
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km4137
Museums & heritage. Barcelona leads by 17 points.17
BarcelonaToulouse
Score6851
Museums within 10 km10527
Museums within 2 km of centre4918
Share of museums within 2 km %4767
Unesco sites within 50 km32
Nightlife. Barcelona leads by 39 points.39
BarcelonaToulouse
Score8243
Drinking venues within 4 km2,711389
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre1,641343
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %6188
Nightclubs within 4 km24536
Nature & day trips. Barcelona leads by 29 points.29
BarcelonaToulouse
Score5021
Protected land share 50 km %101
Landscape blanket share 50 km %00
Land share of disc %51100
Park area within 2 km49 hectares43 hectares
Good for families. Toulouse leads by 1 points.1
BarcelonaToulouse
Score6566
Tourist attractions within 2 km6080
Park area within 2 km49 hectares43 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km32
Sights concentration. Barcelona leads by 22 points.22
BarcelonaToulouse
Score7351
Notable places within 2 km25872
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Barcelona leads by 9 points.9
BarcelonaToulouse
Score7162
Price level global60.873.7
Daily budget€122€160
Year-round weather. Barcelona leads by 7 points.7
BarcelonaToulouse
Score7871
Monthly daytime high13.9 °C to 28.9 °C9.7 °C to 28.5 °C
Monthly rainfall27 mm to 83 mm37 mm to 74 mm
Dry months51
0255075100

Where they differ

Barcelona has 20 beaches nearby against Toulouse's 1, and the sea holds 21°C or more for three months. It has many times as many bars and clubs, and about three times as many restaurants near the centre, with as many notable places within walking distance again. The land around it is 10% protected against 1% around Toulouse, which matters for country days out.

Toulouse is the smaller city, with somewhat more tourist attractions near the centre and museums grouped tightly around it, so a short visit involves less travelling between them.

Where they are alike

Families are the closest call between them. Both have a similar amount of park space near the centre and theme parks within reach, and Toulouse has somewhat more tourist attractions close in, so neither city demands long journeys to keep children occupied.

Their summers are close in shape too: both peak at 29°C in August and both are at their coolest in January. The national budget estimates behind them, €122 and €160, describe similar orders of price rather than two different classes of trip.

Which traveller are you?

If the sea is the point of the trip, Barcelona: 20 beaches within reach and three months when the water sits at 21°C or more, where Toulouse has effectively no coast.

For eating out and late nights, Barcelona again. It has around three times as many restaurants near the centre and many times as many bars and clubs, most of them close enough to walk between.

Travelling with children, or wanting a city you can cover on foot without much planning, Toulouse holds up: similar park space, somewhat more attractions near the centre, museums grouped tightly together and a much smaller city around them.

What the numbers don't tell you

The daily budget is a national estimate of restaurant and hotel price levels, €122 for Spain and €160 for France, not a measurement of either city. A capital or a heavily visited city can sit well away from its own country's average, by more than the gap between these two figures, so it says little about what either trip will cost you.

Barcelona's warmest sea comes in August, the same month everyone else arrives, so the best swimming coincides with the fullest beaches. Its mildest autumn weeks are also its wettest, at 82-83mm, which the temperature alone will not tell you.

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
Barcelona
14
14
16
19
22
26
28
29
26
22
18
15
Toulouse
10
11
15
18
21
26
28
29
25
20
14
10
Sea temperature, °C
Barcelona
14
13
13
14
17
21
24
25
24
21
17
15
Toulouse
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Barcelona
41
32
40
47
44
27
27
51
83
82
45
36
Toulouse
53
37
45
65
74
64
40
45
46
54
55
49
Daylight, hours per day
Barcelona
10
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Toulouse
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Barcelona
5
5
7
8
8
9
10
9
7
6
4
4
Toulouse
3
4
6
6
7
8
8
8
7
5
3
3

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Barcelona: 1991-2020 normals, Barcelona / Aeropuerto (14.4 km from centre). Toulouse: 1991-2020 normals, Toulouse / Blagnac (7 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Barcelona's best run is June and July, warm at 26-28°C and dry at 27mm of rain, with the sea already at 24°C for swimming. May and October are mild enough for walking, though October is the wet one, at 82mm.

Toulouse peaks from July to September, 25-29°C and drier than its own spring, when May and June bring 74mm and 64mm. Its winter is the colder of the two, with January highs near 10°C against Barcelona's 14°C, and no swimming either way.

Getting there

Flying fromBarcelonaToulouse
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 40 m
€79-101
BCN · 13 km
1 h 25 m
€77-94
TLS · 7 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
2 h 0 m
€37-96
BCN · 13 km
1 h 40 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
MadridMAD
1 h 15 m
€114-118
BCN · 13 km
1 h 20 m
€120-143
TLS · 7 km
PalmaPMI
55 m
€40-57
BCN · 13 km
1 h 15 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
AmsterdamAMS
2 h 10 m
€132-158
BCN · 13 km
1 h 50 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
BrusselsBRU, CRL
1 h 55 m
€77-116
BCN · 13 km
1 h 40 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
LisbonLIS
1 h 50 m
€46-94
BCN · 13 km
1 h 55 m
€109-157
TLS · 7 km
RomeFCO, CIA
1 h 40 m
€54-89
BCN · 13 km
1 h 45 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
MarrakechRAK
2 h 20 m
no fares
BCN · 13 km
2 h 30 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
MontrealYUL, YHU, YMX
7 h 35 m
no fares
BCN · 13 km
7 h 25 m
no fares
TLS · 7 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

MeasureBarcelonaToulouse
Official languageSpanishFrench
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCE230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation9 m115 m
Main airportJosep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport (BCN)13 km from centre229 non-stop destinationsToulouse-Blagnac Airport (TLS)7 km from centre80 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureBarcelonaToulouse
City population1,731,649514,819
People per km²17,0944,352
Museums within 10 km9524
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km32
Distinct cuisines in the centre128101
Swim season, months above 21 °C3 months–

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Barcelona or Toulouse 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. 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. 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.