VacationSelector

Bologna or Rome?

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

Your match

Bologna
52
match

Has no clear advantage with the weighting you have chosen.

Rome
✓ Best match
72
match

Wins on sights concentration and beaches & swimming 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 Rome if you want density and variety: many more notable places within walking distance of the centre, roughly three times as many museums and attractions, theme parks within reach for children and a swimmable sea in summer.

Choose Bologna for a smaller, more compact trip, with a wider range of kitchens, museums grouped tightly around the centre and warmer, drier summer days that reach 32°C in July.

Scoreboard

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

BolognaRome
Beaches & swimming. Rome leads by 33 points.33
BolognaRome
Score033
Swim season months05
Beaches 10 km23
Coast distance74 km24 km
Water distance—24 km
Places to eat. Rome leads by 2 points.2
BolognaRome
Score5860
Restaurants within 2 km of centre8222,241
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km2010
Museums & heritage. Rome leads by 17 points.17
BolognaRome
Score6784
Museums within 10 km58161
Museums within 2 km of centre4379
Share of museums within 2 km %7449
Unesco sites within 50 km37
Nightlife. Rome leads by 21 points.21
BolognaRome
Score5374
Drinking venues within 4 km7202,022
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre531912
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %7445
Nightclubs within 4 km3085
Nature & day trips. Rome leads by 31 points.31
BolognaRome
Score3970
Protected land share 50 km %719
Landscape blanket share 50 km %10
Land share of disc %10078
Park area within 2 km119 hectares172 hectares
Good for families. Rome leads by 31 points.31
BolognaRome
Score5586
Tourist attractions within 2 km32126
Park area within 2 km119 hectares172 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km04
Sights concentration. Rome leads by 39 points.39
BolognaRome
Score6099
Notable places within 2 km1201,125
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Bologna and Rome are level on 68.
BolognaRome
Score6868
Price level global64.964.9
Daily budget€155€155
Year-round weather. Rome leads by 4 points.4
BolognaRome
Score6771
Monthly daytime high7 °C to 31.5 °C12 °C to 31.4 °C
Monthly rainfall34 mm to 75 mm21 mm to 114 mm
Dry months53
0255075100

Where they differ

Bologna stays compact: museums, bars and clubs cluster near the centre, where in Rome only about half the drinking places are. Its range of kitchens is wider, and it runs warmer and drier, with highs of 7-32°C across the year against Rome's 12-31°C.

Rome puts many times more notable places within walking distance, three times as many museums and attractions near the centre, and 4 theme parks where Bologna has none. It also has far more protected land nearby and 3 beaches with sea at 21°C or more in summer.

Where they are alike

Eating out is a strength in both, and closely matched. Rome has far more restaurants near the centre, Bologna a wider spread of kitchens, so in either city a good dinner is a short walk from wherever you stay.

Their weather is close too: hot summers peaking at 31-32°C, winters that stay above freezing by day, and more than 2,290 hours of sunshine a year in both. Both also hold serious museum collections, with UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach.

Which traveller are you?

Families with children should head to Rome: three times as many attractions near the centre, more park space, 4 theme parks within reach where Bologna has none, and a coast to escape to when the city turns hot.

A traveller planning a short eating trip is better served by Bologna, where the range of kitchens is wider and restaurants, museums and bars all sit within the same walkable centre.

Anyone building days around museums and heritage wants Rome: three times as many museums, 7 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Bologna's 3, and far more protected land for days out.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value comparison between these two carries no information: it is a national price level, identical for both by construction, so neither city is the cheaper one on this evidence. The €155 daily budget beside it is one national estimate rather than a measurement of Rome or Bologna.

The beach figures flatter Rome as well. Swimming means a trip out to the coast rather than a swim in the city, and the sea only passes 21°C in high summer, when both cities sit near 31-32°C. Bologna's drier weather is a summer trait: September to November bring 70-75mm a month, well above its winter.

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
Rome
12
13
16
18
24
28
31
31
27
22
17
13
Sea temperature, °C
Bologna
No coastline within reach
Rome
15
14
14
15
18
22
25
25
24
21
19
16
Rainfall, mm
Bologna
36
36
49
54
50
37
34
40
75
75
70
58
Rome
67
69
57
75
62
33
21
38
70
97
114
103
Daylight, hours per day
Bologna
9
10
12
13
15
16
15
14
13
11
10
9
Rome
10
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
Rome
4
5
6
7
9
10
11
11
8
6
4
4

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). Rome: 1991-2020 normals, Roma / Ciampino (15.1 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Bologna is at its best in May and June, with highs of 24-29°C and 37-50mm of rain. July and August reach 32°C, hot for walking, and September stays warm at 26°C but turns wet, at 75mm.

Rome peaks in June at 28°C with only 33mm, and holds into September at 27°C, with the sea at 25°C in August. Its autumn is the wetter of the two, 97-114mm in October and November, so bring a shoulder-season trip forward to early autumn.

Getting there

Flying fromBolognaRome
CataniaCTA
1 h 40 m
€41-45
BLQ · 6 km
1 h 20 m
€60-112
FCO · 23 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 40 m
€158-262
1 stop
BLQ · 6 km
2 h 0 m
€91-122
FCO · 23 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
2 h 0 m
€114-267
BLQ · 6 km
2 h 20 m
€76-143
1 stop
FCO · 23 km
BarcelonaBCN
1 h 40 m
€42-75
BLQ · 6 km
1 h 40 m
€44-74
FCO · 23 km
MadridMAD
2 h 10 m
no fares
BLQ · 6 km
2 h 15 m
€98-119
FCO · 23 km
PalermoPMO
1 h 30 m
€83-129
1 stop
BLQ · 6 km
1 h 10 m
€38-50
FCO · 23 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
8 h 30 m
€637-650
VCE · 138 km
8 h 45 m
€446-597
FCO · 23 km
CasablancaCMN
3 h 5 m
€180-238
1 stop
BLQ · 6 km
3 h 0 m
no fares
FCO · 23 km
MaleMLE
9 h 35 m
no fares
VRN · 106 km
9 h 20 m
no fares
FCO · 23 km
CancunCUN
11 h 10 m
no fares
VRN · 106 km
11 h 30 m
no fares
FCO · 23 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

MeasureBolognaRome
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 m21 m
Main airportBologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport (BLQ)6 km from centre97 non-stop destinationsRome–Fiumicino Leonardo da Vinci International Airport (FCO)23 km from centre230 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureBolognaRome
City population387,9712,748,109
People per km²2,7542,135
Museums within 10 km66177
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km37
Distinct cuisines in the centre6265
Swim season, months above 21 °C–5 months

Where else could you go?

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