VacationSelector
The Guggenheim Museum on the river, Bilbao
BilbaoThe Guggenheim Museum on the river
Florence and the Arno, Florence
FlorenceFlorence and the Arno

Photos: Bilbao by José Ligero Loarte, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Florence by Wolfgang Weiser, Pexels License.

Bilbao or Florence?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Bilbao for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Bilbao’s own page.

Choose Florence for

  • culture and sights
  • shopping
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Florence’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Bilbao 45, Florence 14: Bilbao leads by 31 points.
Food & drink. Bilbao 81, Florence 74: Bilbao leads by 7 points.
Culture & sights. Bilbao 62, Florence 94: Florence leads by 32 points.
Nightlife. Bilbao 54, Florence 42: Bilbao leads by 12 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bilbao 75, Florence 58: Bilbao leads by 17 points.
Day trips. Bilbao 78, Florence 98: Florence leads by 20 points.
Good for families. Bilbao 55, Florence 45: Bilbao leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Bilbao 79, Florence 78: Bilbao leads by 1 points.
Shopping & style. Bilbao 47, Florence 72: Florence leads by 25 points.
Affordability. Bilbao 44, Florence 35: Bilbao leads by 9 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bilbao 53, Florence 58: Florence leads by 5 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bilbao 33, Florence 42: Florence leads by 9 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bilbao and Florence.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Too close to call, level with your weighting

Bilbao
59match

Wins on beaches and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Florence
59match

Wins on culture and sights and shopping with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Bilbao in July

25 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
54 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
21 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Florence in July

32 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
37 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
BilbaoFlorence

Where the figures come from

Florence has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Florence's sunshine is measured 71 km from the centre, at Pisa / S. Giusto.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Bilbao: 1991-2020 normals, Bilbao / Sondica (4.1 km from centre). Florence: 1995-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Firenze / Peretola (5.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBilbaoFlorence
Official languageSpanishItalian
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation19 m50 m
Main airportBilbao Airport (BIO)5 km from centre73 non-stop destinationsFlorence Airport, Peretola (FLR)6 km from centre46 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureBilbaoFlorence
City population351,124360,930
People per km²8,4403,528
Museums within 10 km17141
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km24
Swim season, months above 21 °C1 month-

Where else could you go?

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

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.