VacationSelector

Biarritz or Montpellier?

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

Your match

Biarritz
38
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and museums & heritage with your weighting.

Montpellier
✓ Best match
47
match

Wins on places to eat 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 Biarritz if the sea is the point: the water begins 1km from the centre, there are dozens of beaches within reach, and summer highs sit near 26°C rather than pushing higher.

Choose Montpellier if you want a city around the beach trip: far more restaurants near the centre, more bars and clubs, more to do with children, and a drier year, with the sea a 9km trip.

Scoreboard

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

BiarritzMontpellier
Beaches & swimming. Biarritz leads by 35 points.35
BiarritzMontpellier
Score6732
Swim season months22
Beaches 10 km438
Coast distance1 km9 km
Water distance1 km9 km
Places to eat. Montpellier leads by 33 points.33
BiarritzMontpellier
Score3265
Restaurants within 2 km of centre207737
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km1334
Museums & heritage. Biarritz leads by 5 points.5
BiarritzMontpellier
Score3126
Museums within 10 km1614
Museums within 2 km of centre53
Share of museums within 2 km %3121
Unesco sites within 50 km22
Nightlife. Montpellier leads by 23 points.23
BiarritzMontpellier
Score1538
Drinking venues within 4 km105318
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre82265
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %7883
Nightclubs within 4 km625
Nature & day trips. Montpellier leads by 13 points.13
BiarritzMontpellier
Score3043
Protected land share 50 km %615
Landscape blanket share 50 km %010
Land share of disc %6470
Park area within 2 km32 hectares55 hectares
Good for families. Montpellier leads by 23 points.23
BiarritzMontpellier
Score2144
Tourist attractions within 2 km28
Park area within 2 km32 hectares55 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km17
Sights concentration. Montpellier leads by 15 points.15
BiarritzMontpellier
Score2338
Notable places within 2 km1535
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Biarritz and Montpellier are level on 62.
BiarritzMontpellier
Score6262
Price level global73.773.7
Daily budget€160€160
Year-round weather. Montpellier leads by 9 points.9
BiarritzMontpellier
Score6574
Monthly daytime high13.1 °C to 25.8 °C12 °C to 29.6 °C
Monthly rainfall97 mm to 224 mm17 mm to 93 mm
Dry months05
0255075100

Where they differ

Biarritz is the beach town of the two. The sea is 1km from the centre against 9km in Montpellier, and there are 43 beaches nearby against 8, so swimming is a walk rather than a journey.

Montpellier has about three times as many restaurants near the centre and a much wider range of kitchens, so eating out varies night to night. It is also the easier city with children: many more attractions near the centre and 7 theme parks within reach against Biarritz's 1.

Where they are alike

Museums are a level field: the two hold much the same number, and each has 2 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach.

The sea itself is shared. Both peak at 22°C in late summer and both hold 21°C or more for two months, so the swimming season opens and closes at the same time. Neither is a dense sights district either: notable places near the centre are limited in both.

Which traveller are you?

Anyone whose holiday is built around swimming should take Biarritz: the water is 1km from the centre, there are 43 beaches to choose between, and the sea holds 22°C at its late-summer peak.

If eating and going out matter more, Montpellier: many more restaurants near the centre, a wider spread of kitchens, and far more places to drink and dance, most of them within walking distance.

Families are better served in Montpellier: 7 theme parks within reach against Biarritz's 1, more attractions and park space near the centre, and 15% of the surrounding land protected for days out.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value comparison between these two carries no information. It rests on a national price level, identical for both by construction, and the €160 daily budget beside it is one country-wide estimate rather than a measurement of either city. What you actually spend may differ; this data cannot say which way.

Biarritz's beach strength is narrow in time: the sea passes 21°C for only two months, and those are the months everyone else arrives. Montpellier's dry, warm summer is measured in the city, 9km from the water, so a beach day there is a planned trip rather than an afternoon decision.

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
Biarritz
13
14
16
18
21
23
25
26
24
21
16
14
Montpellier
12
13
16
19
23
27
30
29
25
21
16
13
Sea temperature, °C
Biarritz
13
12
12
14
16
19
21
22
21
18
16
14
Montpellier
12
12
12
14
16
19
21
22
20
18
16
14
Rainfall, mm
Biarritz
166
143
127
147
133
106
97
110
146
166
224
179
Montpellier
56
35
39
56
46
33
17
36
88
93
78
59
Daylight, hours per day
Biarritz
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Montpellier
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Biarritz
3
3
5
5
6
6
7
7
6
4
3
2
Montpellier
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
10
8
6
5
5

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Biarritz: 1991-2020 normals, San Sebastian / Fuenterrabia (24.4 km from centre). Montpellier: 1991-2020 normals, Montpellier (7.8 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Biarritz is at its best from July to September, with highs of 24-26°C and sea at 21-22°C; even then rain runs near 100mm a month, and November brings 224mm.

Montpellier is warmer and drier through summer, with highs of 27-30°C from June to August and just 17mm of rain at the peak. Autumn breaks it: September and October bring 88-93mm, wetter than anything Biarritz gets in summer.

Getting there

Flying fromBiarritzMontpellier
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 30 m
€129-164
BIQ · 3 km
1 h 25 m
no fares
MPL · 8 km
MunichMUC
2 h 10 m
€203-242
1 stop
BIO · 111 km
1 h 35 m
no fares
MRS · 109 km
MadridMAD
1 h 5 m
€76-169
EAS · 23 km
1 h 35 m
no fares
MRS · 109 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
2 h 0 m
no fares
BIO · 111 km
1 h 35 m
no fares
MRS · 109 km
AmsterdamAMS
2 h 0 m
€196-210
1 stop
BIO · 111 km
1 h 50 m
no fares
MPL · 8 km
LisbonLIS
1 h 30 m
€129-223
1 stop
BIO · 111 km
2 h 10 m
€136-184
1 stop
MRS · 109 km
PalmaPMI
1 h 25 m
no fares
BIO · 111 km
1 h 15 m
no fares
MRS · 109 km
BastiaBIA
1 h 45 m
no fares
BIQ · 3 km
1 h 5 m
no fares
MRS · 109 km
AjaccioAJA
1 h 35 m
no fares
PUF · 93 km
1 h 5 m
no fares
MRS · 109 km
MarrakechRAK
2 h 15 m
no fares
BIO · 111 km
2 h 40 m
no fares
MPL · 8 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

MeasureBiarritzMontpellier
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
Elevation0 m7 m
Main airportBiarritz Pays Basque airport (BIQ)3 km from centre24 non-stop destinationsMontpellier-Méditerranée Airport (MPL)8 km from centre36 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureBiarritzMontpellier
City population26,206310,240
People per km²2,2405,452
Museums within 10 km814
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km22
Distinct cuisines in the centre2465
Swim season, months above 21 °C2 months2 months

Where else could you go?

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