VacationSelector

Bologna or Pisa?

Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Your match

Bologna
✓ Best match
52
match

Wins on nightlife and places to eat with your weighting.

Pisa
45
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and year-round weather 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 wider choice of restaurants and the busier evening, with more museums and more to walk to in a compact centre.

Choose Pisa if the sea matters: 4 months warm enough to swim, peaking at 25°C at the end of summer, with theme parks within reach for children and milder winter days near 11°C.

Scoreboard

Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.

BolognaPisa
Beaches & swimming. Pisa leads by 21 points.21
BolognaPisa
Score021
Swim season months04
Beaches 10 km21
Coast distance74 km10 km
Water distance—10 km
Places to eat. Bologna leads by 24 points.24
BolognaPisa
Score5834
Restaurants within 2 km of centre822379
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km209
Museums & heritage. Bologna leads by 12 points.12
BolognaPisa
Score6755
Museums within 10 km5827
Museums within 2 km of centre4322
Share of museums within 2 km %7481
Unesco sites within 50 km33
Nightlife. Bologna leads by 25 points.25
BolognaPisa
Score5328
Drinking venues within 4 km720232
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre531203
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %7488
Nightclubs within 4 km303
Nature & day trips. Bologna and Pisa are level on 39.
BolognaPisa
Score3939
Protected land share 50 km %79
Landscape blanket share 50 km %10
Land share of disc %10065
Park area within 2 km119 hectares40 hectares
Good for families. Bologna leads by 8 points.8
BolognaPisa
Score5547
Tourist attractions within 2 km3220
Park area within 2 km119 hectares40 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km02
Sights concentration. Bologna leads by 13 points.13
BolognaPisa
Score6047
Notable places within 2 km12058
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Bologna and Pisa are level on 68.
BolognaPisa
Score6868
Price level global64.964.9
Daily budget€155€155
Year-round weather. Pisa leads by 3 points.3
BolognaPisa
Score6770
Monthly daytime high7 °C to 31.5 °C11.4 °C to 30.3 °C
Monthly rainfall34 mm to 75 mm32 mm to 132 mm
Dry months52
0255075100

Where they differ

Bologna has about twice as many restaurants near the centre as Pisa, and a much wider range of kitchens. It also has roughly three times as many places to drink and many times as many nightclubs, most of them near the centre, so evenings take no planning.

Pisa answers with water: 4 months of sea at 21°C or more, reaching 25°C at the end of summer, where Bologna has no swimmable month at all despite 2 beaches nearby.

Where they are alike

Neither is a base for wild country: 9% of the land around Pisa is protected and 7% around Bologna, so day trips are short hops rather than expeditions.

The weather year runs similarly in both, warm summers and mild winters, and both work for families without being built for them. Each also sits within day-trip reach of 3 UNESCO-listed places, though Bologna has about twice as many museums.

Which traveller are you?

If you are travelling for food and evenings out, Bologna: about twice as many restaurants near the centre, a far wider range of kitchens, and three times as many places to drink, most of them walkable from the middle.

Families split. Pisa suits a beach-and-rides trip, 2 theme parks within reach and sea at 25°C in high summer; Bologna suits city days, with more attractions and far more park space near the centre.

Museum-focused travellers do better in Bologna, with about twice as many museums and more notable places within walking distance. Both sit within day-trip reach of 3 UNESCO-listed places, so the difference is density, not headline sights.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value figure is a national price level, identical for both by construction, so it says nothing about which of these two cities costs more; the €155 daily budget beside it is one national estimate rather than a measurement of either place.

Bologna looks steadier on year-round weather partly because more of its months sit at 40mm of rain or less, but its 7-32°C span is wider than Pisa's, hot in midsummer and cold in winter. And Pisa's swimmable sea arrives only in the months when heat and visitor numbers are highest.

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.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Bologna
7
10
15
19
24
29
32
32
26
19
13
8
Pisa
11
13
16
18
23
27
30
30
26
21
16
12
Sea temperature, °C
Bologna
No coastline within reach
Pisa
14
13
14
15
18
22
24
25
23
20
18
16
Rainfall, mm
Bologna
36
36
49
54
50
37
34
40
75
75
70
58
Pisa
68
58
59
65
63
41
32
35
102
125
132
95
Daylight, hours per day
Bologna
9
10
12
13
15
16
15
14
13
11
10
9
Pisa
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Bologna
3
4
6
7
8
10
11
10
7
5
3
3
Pisa
4
4
6
6
8
9
11
10
7
5
4
3

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). Pisa: 1991-2020 normals, Pisa / S. Giusto (3.9 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Bologna is at its best in May and June: highs of 24-29°C with 37-50mm of rain. Midsummer is hotter, up to 32°C, and autumn brings around 75mm a month, enough to shift plans indoors.

Pisa is the summer choice, with sea at 22-25°C and its driest month near 32mm. Its autumn is the wettest stretch either city sees, over 120mm a month, though winter days stay milder, near 11°C against Bologna's 7°C.

Getting there

Flying fromBolognaPisa
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
2 h 0 m
€114-267
BLQ · 6 km
2 h 5 m
€48-62
PSA · 4 km
TiranaTIA
1 h 35 m
€96-199
BLQ · 6 km
1 h 35 m
no fares
PSA · 4 km
CataniaCTA
1 h 40 m
€41-45
BLQ · 6 km
1 h 35 m
€55-66
PSA · 4 km
PalermoPMO
1 h 30 m
€83-129
1 stop
BLQ · 6 km
1 h 25 m
no fares
PSA · 4 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 40 m
€158-262
1 stop
BLQ · 6 km
1 h 40 m
no fares
PSA · 4 km
RomeFCO, CIA
1 h 0 m
no fares
BLQ · 6 km
55 m
€136-139
1 stop
FLR · 65 km
CagliariCAG
1 h 25 m
no fares
BLQ · 6 km
1 h 15 m
no fares
PSA · 4 km
BrindisiBDS
1 h 30 m
no fares
BLQ · 6 km
1 h 30 m
no fares
PSA · 4 km
BariBRI
1 h 20 m
no fares
BLQ · 6 km
1 h 20 m
no fares
PSA · 4 km
CasablancaCMN
3 h 5 m
€180-238
1 stop
BLQ · 6 km
3 h 5 m
€180-238
1 stop
BLQ · 115 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 2026-08 to 2026-09, 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

MeasureBolognaPisa
Official languageItalianItalian
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCFL230 V, 50 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation54 m4 m
Main airportBologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport (BLQ)6 km from centre97 non-stop destinationsPisa International Airport (PSA)4 km from centre81 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureBolognaPisa
City population387,97188,737
People per km²2,754479
Museums within 10 km6627
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km33
Distinct cuisines in the centre6229
Swim season, months above 21 °C–4 months

Where else could you go?

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

Browse every destination we have measured

Sources

© OpenStreetMap contributors, data available under the Open Database Licence. Place counts include data from Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA Permissive 2.0), assembled from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and other providers. Notable-place counts from Wikidata (CC0), weighted by Wikipedia language editions. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-08-31. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.