Biarritz or Paris?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on beaches & swimming with your weighting.
Wins on nightlife and sights concentration 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: 43 beaches within reach, water that passes 21°C in late summer, and a town of 26,000 rather than a capital.
Choose Paris if you want museums, restaurants and late nights within walking distance of one another, with theme parks and parkland for children and far more to reach on a day trip.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Biarritz leads by 67 points.67
| Biarritz | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 67 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 2 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 43 | 2 |
| Coast distance | 1 km | 149 km |
| Water distance | 1 km | — |
Places to eat. Paris leads by 58 points.58
| Biarritz | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 32 | 90 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 207 | 4,732 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 13 | 33 |
Museums & heritage. Paris leads by 45 points.45
| Biarritz | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 31 | 76 |
| Museums within 10 km | 16 | 185 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 5 | 65 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 31 | 35 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 2 | 4 |
Nightlife. Paris leads by 73 points.73
| Biarritz | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 15 | 88 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 105 | 3,796 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 82 | 1,694 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 78 | 45 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 6 | 201 |
Nature & day trips. Paris leads by 18 points.18
| Biarritz | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 30 | 48 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 6 | 28 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 26 |
| Land share of disc % | 64 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 32 hectares | 82 hectares |
Good for families. Paris leads by 54 points.54
| Biarritz | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 21 | 75 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 2 | 89 |
| Park area within 2 km | 32 hectares | 82 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 1 | 3 |
Sights concentration. Paris leads by 71 points.71
| Biarritz | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 23 | 94 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 15 | 865 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Biarritz and Paris are level on 62.
| Biarritz | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 62 |
| Price level global | 73.7 | 73.7 |
| Daily budget | €160 | €160 |
Year-round weather. Paris leads by 1 points.1
| Biarritz | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 65 | 66 |
| Monthly daytime high | 13.1 °C to 25.8 °C | 7.8 °C to 26 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 97 mm to 224 mm | 38 mm to 75 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 1 |
Where they differ
Biarritz has 43 beaches within reach against Paris's 2, and two months when the sea sits at 21°C or above, which Paris never reaches. What nightlife there is sits close to the centre, so a short walk covers it.
Paris has many times as many notable places within walking distance of the centre, many times as many restaurants and a far wider range of kitchens, and many times as many bars and clubs, though only about half of them sit near the centre.
Where they are alike
Both peak in the same month and at the same level: August highs of 26°C, with January the coolest month in each. Neither is a summer-only destination, and neither offers a warm winter.
Both put UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, 4 from Paris and 2 from Biarritz, along with protected countryside and parkland near the centre. Both are also quoted at the same national price estimate, around €160 a day, a national figure rather than a local one.
Which traveller are you?
If the point of the trip is swimming or surfing, Biarritz is the only real answer: 43 beaches nearby against 2 around Paris, and sea at 22°C in August, where Paris has no warm-water month at all.
If you want museums, restaurants and late nights within walking distance of each other, Paris carries many times the choice in each, and its notable places sit tightly around the centre, so days need less travel.
Families also lean to Paris: 3 theme parks within reach against Biarritz's 1, many times as many attractions near the centre, and far more park space for days that need a break.
What the numbers don't tell you
The value figure is a national price level, identical for both by construction, so the comparison between these two carries no information. The daily budget beside it, around €160, is one national estimate rather than a measurement of either city.
No weather station near Paris records sunshine hours, so that figure is missing rather than low, leaving one side of the weather comparison unmeasured. Biarritz's beach advantage also rests on a narrow window: the sea reaches 21°C or more in only two months, and those are the months everyone else comes.
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. Biarritz: 1991-2020 normals, San Sebastian / Fuenterrabia (24.4 km from centre). Paris: 1991-2020 normals, Paris-Montsouris (4.6 km from centre).
Biarritz is best in July and August: highs of 25-26°C, sea at 21-22°C and its driest weeks of the year. Either side of that stretch the sea falls back, and autumn is heavy, with 224mm in November.
Paris holds up from June to September, at 22-26°C, with rain near 51-58mm through the summer against 97-146mm in Biarritz over the same months. Even its wettest month, May, is lighter than anything on the Biarritz calendar.
Getting there
| Flying from | Biarritz | Paris |
|---|---|---|
| AmsterdamAMS | 2 h 0 m €196-210 1 stop BIO · 111 km | 1 h 10 m €188-212 CDG · 22 km |
| MadridMAD | 1 h 5 m €76-169 EAS · 23 km | 1 h 55 m €107-141 ORY · 14 km |
| MunichMUC | 2 h 10 m €203-242 1 stop BIO · 111 km | 1 h 30 m €160-210 1 stop CDG · 22 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 2 h 0 m no fares BIO · 111 km | 1 h 10 m €122-134 CDG · 22 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 45 m €126-289 1 stop BIQ · 3 km | 1 h 5 m €63-103 CDG · 22 km |
| PalmaPMI | 1 h 25 m no fares BIO · 111 km | 1 h 50 m no fares ORY · 14 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 10 m no fares EAS · 23 km | 1 h 40 m €110-135 CDG · 22 km |
| LisbonLIS | 1 h 30 m €129-223 1 stop BIO · 111 km | 2 h 20 m €138-242 ORY · 14 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 7 h 20 m no fares BIO · 111 km | 7 h 30 m €579-648 1 stop CDG · 22 km |
| MarrakechRAK | 2 h 15 m no fares BIO · 111 km | 3 h 10 m €130-199 ORY · 14 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 2026-09 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 | Biarritz | Paris |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | French | French |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CE230 V, 50 Hz | CE230 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 | 0 m | 27 m |
| Main airport | Biarritz Pays Basque airport (BIQ)3 km from centre24 non-stop destinations | Charles de Gaulle International Airport (CDG)22 km from centre277 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 11 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Biarritz | Paris |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 26,206 | 2,103,778 |
| People per km² | 2,240 | 19,960 |
| Museums within 10 km | 8 | 251 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 4 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 24 | 169 |
| 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 Biarritz or Paris somewhere new.