VacationSelector
San Petronio on Piazza Maggiore, Bologna
BolognaSan Petronio on Piazza Maggiore
The town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture, Playa del Carmen
Playa del CarmenThe town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture

Photos: Bologna by Vanni Lazzari, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Playa del Carmen by lazyweaver, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Bologna or Playa del Carmen?

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

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

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

Choose Playa del Carmen for

  • beaches
  • families
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Playa del Carmen’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, Playa del Carmen 88: Playa del Carmen leads by 58 points.
Food & drink. Bologna 82, Playa del Carmen 52: Bologna leads by 30 points.
Culture & sights. Bologna 77, Playa del Carmen 12: Bologna leads by 65 points.
Nightlife. Bologna 58, Playa del Carmen 66: Playa del Carmen leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bologna 52, Playa del Carmen 74: Playa del Carmen leads by 22 points.
Day trips. Bologna 95, Playa del Carmen 72: Bologna leads by 23 points.
Good for families. Bologna 50, Playa del Carmen 78: Playa del Carmen leads by 28 points.
Getting around. Bologna 76, Playa del Carmen 55: Bologna leads by 21 points.
Shopping & style. Bologna 55, Playa del Carmen 38: Bologna leads by 17 points.
Affordability. Bologna 48, Playa del Carmen 52: Playa del Carmen leads by 4 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bologna 60, Playa del Carmen 22: Bologna leads by 38 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bologna 40, Playa del Carmen 54: Playa del Carmen leads by 14 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bologna and Playa del Carmen.

Your match

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

Bologna
Best match
60match

Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Playa del Carmen
55match

Wins on beaches and families 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

Playa del Carmen in July

29 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
96 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
BolognaPlaya del Carmen

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.

Playa del Carmen has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Bologna: 1991-2020 normals, Bologna / Borgo Panigale (5.5 km from centre). Playa del Carmen: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureBolognaPlaya del Carmen
Official languageItalianSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsCFL230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-5
Emergency number112911
Elevation54 m8 m
Main airportBologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport (BLQ)6 km from centre98 non-stop destinationsCancún International Airport (CUN)50 km from centre137 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureBolognaPlaya del Carmen
City population387,971304,942
People per km²2,754-
Museums within 10 km680
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km30
Swim season, months above 21 °C-12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Bologna or Playa del Carmen 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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.