Bologna or Ljubljana?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on good for families and museums & heritage with your weighting.
Wins on value for money and nature & day trips 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 Bologna if you want the denser city: more museums, far more places to eat near the centre, and a warmer year, with July highs of 32°C.
Choose Ljubljana if you are heading outdoors: 13% of the surrounding land is protected, more beaches lie within reach, and the range of kitchens is wider.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Bologna and Ljubljana are level on 0.
| Bologna | Ljubljana | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 2 | 10 |
| Coast distance | 74 km | 72 km |
| Water distance | — | — |
Places to eat. Bologna leads by 3 points.3
| Bologna | Ljubljana | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 58 | 55 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 822 | 292 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 20 | 40 |
Museums & heritage. Bologna leads by 12 points.12
| Bologna | Ljubljana | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 67 | 55 |
| Museums within 10 km | 58 | 26 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 43 | 23 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 74 | 88 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 3 | 3 |
Nightlife. Bologna leads by 8 points.8
| Bologna | Ljubljana | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 53 | 45 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 720 | 458 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 531 | 284 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 74 | 62 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 30 | 24 |
Nature & day trips. Ljubljana leads by 1 points.1
| Bologna | Ljubljana | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 39 | 40 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 7 | 13 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 1 | 5 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 119 hectares | 75 hectares |
Good for families. Bologna leads by 17 points.17
| Bologna | Ljubljana | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 55 | 38 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 32 | 12 |
| Park area within 2 km | 119 hectares | 75 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 0 | 0 |
Sights concentration. Bologna leads by 2 points.2
| Bologna | Ljubljana | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 60 | 58 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 120 | 109 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Ljubljana leads by 4 points.4
| Bologna | Ljubljana | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 72 |
| Price level global | 64.9 | 59.6 |
| Daily budget | €155 | €131 |
Year-round weather. Bologna leads by 11 points.11
| Bologna | Ljubljana | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 67 | 56 |
| Monthly daytime high | 7 °C to 31.5 °C | 4.1 °C to 27.9 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 34 mm to 75 mm | 67 mm to 159 mm |
| Dry months | 5 | 0 |
Where they differ
Bologna has about twice as many museums and three times as many tourist attractions near the centre, plus about twice as much park space. It also runs warmer, with daytime highs of 7-32°C against Ljubljana's 4-28°C, and five months at 40mm of rain or less.
Ljubljana's advantage lies outside the city: 13% of the surrounding land is protected against 7% around Bologna. Its kitchens cover a wider range of cuisines, and more beaches lie within reach.
Where they are alike
Neither city is a place to swim. Both are inland, and neither has a month with sea at 21°C or more, so a beach day is not part of the trip either way.
Both hold a similar number of notable places within walking distance of the centre. Nature and day trips are modest from each. Eating out is a strength in both, and the two national price levels sit close, at €155 and €131 a day.
Which traveller are you?
Travelling with children: Bologna. There are about three times as many attractions near the centre and roughly twice the park space, and it is milder in the shoulder months. Neither city has a theme park within reach.
City break for museums and eating: Bologna again, with about twice as many museums and three times the restaurants near the centre, plus more places to drink after dark. Both have 3 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach.
Walkers and outdoor travellers: Ljubljana, where 13% of the surrounding land is protected against 7% around Bologna, summers top out near 28°C, and more beaches sit within reach.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget is a national estimate of restaurant and hotel prices, one figure for Italy and one for Slovenia, not a measurement of Bologna or Ljubljana. A capital or a heavily visited city can sit further from its own country's average than the two national figures sit from each other, so neither number tells you what your trip will cost.
Warm does not mean dry. Ljubljana's warmest months are also among its wettest, and Bologna's September holds 26°C alongside 75mm of rain. Bologna's July and August highs of 32°C will be more than some visitors want.
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. Bologna: 1991-2020 normals, Bologna / Borgo Panigale (5.5 km from centre). Ljubljana: 1991-2020 normals, Ljubljana / Bezigrad (1.9 km from centre).
Bologna is at its best from May to June, with highs of 24-29°C and rainfall of 37-50mm. July and August reach 32°C, dry but hot; September stays at 26°C while rain climbs to 75mm.
Ljubljana peaks in July and August at 28°C, cooler than Bologna at the same time, though 121-124mm of rain falls in each. Autumn is wetter still, with 150-159mm in September and October, and January highs of 4°C make winter a hard sell.
Getting there
| Flying from | Bologna | Ljubljana |
|---|---|---|
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 0 m no fares BLQ · 6 km | 1 h 10 m no fares TRS · 84 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 2 h 25 m €154-191 1 stop BLQ · 6 km | 2 h 10 m €188-190 LJU · 20 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 0 m €114-267 BLQ · 6 km | 2 h 5 m no fares LJU · 20 km |
| CataniaCTA | 1 h 40 m €41-45 BLQ · 6 km | 1 h 45 m no fares TRS · 84 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 40 m €158-262 1 stop BLQ · 6 km | 1 h 45 m €139-178 1 stop LJU · 20 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 1 h 25 m no fares BLQ · 6 km | 1 h 25 m no fares LJU · 20 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 40 m €42-75 BLQ · 6 km | 1 h 55 m no fares TRS · 84 km |
| TiranaTIA | 1 h 35 m €96-199 BLQ · 6 km | 1 h 30 m no fares TRS · 84 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 5 h 55 m no fares BLQ · 6 km | 5 h 45 m €374-528 2 stops LJU · 20 km |
| TorontoYYZ, YHM, YTZ | 8 h 45 m no fares VCE · 138 km | 9 h 0 m no fares ZAG · 126 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 | Bologna | Ljubljana |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Italian | Slovene |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CFL230 V, 50 Hz | CF230 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 | 54 m | 309 m |
| Main airport | Bologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport (BLQ)6 km from centre97 non-stop destinations | Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport (LJU)20 km from centre28 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 21 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Bologna | Ljubljana |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 387,971 | 284,293 |
| People per km² | 2,754 | 1,736 |
| Museums within 10 km | 66 | 14 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 3 | 3 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 62 | 63 |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Bologna or Ljubljana somewhere new.