VacationSelector
The Guggenheim Museum on the river, Bilbao
BilbaoThe Guggenheim Museum on the river
The harbour seen from above, Marmaris
MarmarisThe harbour seen from above

Photos: Bilbao by José Ligero Loarte, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Marmaris by Mstyslav Chernov, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Bilbao or Marmaris?

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

  • culture and sights
  • food and drink
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Marmaris for

  • beaches
  • prices
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Marmaris’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, Marmaris 80: Marmaris leads by 35 points.
Food & drink. Bilbao 81, Marmaris 40: Bilbao leads by 41 points.
Culture & sights. Bilbao 62, Marmaris 18: Bilbao leads by 44 points.
Nightlife. Bilbao 54, Marmaris 60: Marmaris leads by 6 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bilbao 75, Marmaris 72: Bilbao leads by 3 points.
Day trips. Bilbao 78, Marmaris 65: Bilbao leads by 13 points.
Good for families. Bilbao 55, Marmaris 62: Marmaris leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Bilbao 79, Marmaris 55: Bilbao leads by 24 points.
Shopping & style. Bilbao 47, Marmaris 38: Bilbao leads by 9 points.
Affordability. Bilbao 44, Marmaris 62: Marmaris leads by 18 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bilbao 53, Marmaris 12: Bilbao leads by 41 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bilbao 33, Marmaris 50: Marmaris leads by 17 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bilbao and Marmaris.

Your match

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

Bilbao
Best match
59match

Wins on culture and sights and food and drink with your weighting.

Marmaris
51match

Wins on beaches and prices 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

Marmaris in July

32 °Cdaytime high
21 °Cnight-time low
8 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
25 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
BilbaoMarmaris

Where the figures come from

Marmaris's temperatures are measured 49 km from the centre, at Dalaman.

Marmaris 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.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Bilbao: 1991-2020 normals, Bilbao / Sondica (4.1 km from centre). Marmaris: 2000-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Dalaman (48.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBilbaoMarmaris
Official languageSpanishTurkish
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Turkish Lira (TRY)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+3
Emergency number112112
Elevation19 m7 m
Main airportBilbao Airport (BIO)5 km from centre73 non-stop destinationsDalaman International Airport (DLM)49 km from centre61 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureBilbaoMarmaris
City population351,12497,818
People per km²8,440111
Museums within 10 km171
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
Swim season, months above 21 °C1 month6 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Bilbao or Marmaris 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm.

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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.