VacationSelector
San Petronio on Piazza Maggiore, Bologna
BolognaSan Petronio on Piazza Maggiore
The steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi, New Orleans
New OrleansThe steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi

Photos: Bologna by Vanni Lazzari, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; New Orleans by Bernard Spragg, CC0.

Bologna or New Orleans?

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 Bologna for

  • day trips
  • getting around
  • beaches

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

Choose New Orleans for

  • nightlife
  • live music and the arts
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on New Orleans’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. Bologna 30, New Orleans 14: Bologna leads by 16 points.
Food & drink. Bologna 82, New Orleans 84: New Orleans leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Bologna 77, New Orleans 67: Bologna leads by 10 points.
Nightlife. Bologna 58, New Orleans 85: New Orleans leads by 27 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bologna 52, New Orleans 42: Bologna leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Bologna 95, New Orleans 52: Bologna leads by 43 points.
Good for families. Bologna 50, New Orleans 55: New Orleans leads by 5 points.
Getting around. Bologna 76, New Orleans 55: Bologna leads by 21 points.
Shopping & style. Bologna 55, New Orleans 54: Bologna leads by 1 points.
Affordability. Bologna 48, New Orleans 40: Bologna leads by 8 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bologna 60, New Orleans 80: New Orleans leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bologna 40, New Orleans 25: Bologna leads by 15 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bologna and New Orleans.

Your match

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

Bologna
Best match
60match

Wins on day trips and getting around with your weighting.

New Orleans
54match

Wins on nightlife and live music and the arts with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Bologna in July

32 °Cdaytime high
20 °Cnight-time low
39 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

New Orleans in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
169 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
BolognaNew Orleans

Where the figures come from

Bologna 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.

Bologna's sunshine is measured 82 km from the centre, at Cervia.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Bologna: 1991-2020 normals, Bologna / Borgo Panigale (5.5 km from centre). New Orleans: 1991-2020 normals, New Orleans Airport (2.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBolognaNew Orleans
Official languageItalian-
CurrencyEuro (EUR)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCFL230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-6, UTC-5 in summer
Emergency number112911
Elevation54 m-2 m
Main airportBologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport (BLQ)6 km from centre98 non-stop destinationsLouis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)18 km from centre51 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureBolognaNew Orleans
City population387,971383,997
People per km²2,754423
Museums within 10 km6816
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km30
Swim season, months above 21 °C-7 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Bologna or New Orleans 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. 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.