VacationSelector

Bologna or Split?

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

Your match

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Bologna
52
match

Wins on good for families and places to eat with your weighting.

Split
51
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and value for money 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 the trip is about walking a compact centre: eating out, museums and attractions sit close together, and water plays no part in it, with just 2 beaches nearby.

Choose Split if swimming sets the shape of the days, with 87 beaches and a sea that stays warm through late summer, accepting fewer restaurants, fewer museums and less to occupy children.

Scoreboard

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

BolognaSplit
Beaches & swimming. Split leads by 73 points.73
BolognaSplit
Score073
Swim season months04
Beaches 10 km287
Coast distance74 km0 km
Water distance—0 km
Places to eat. Bologna leads by 20 points.20
BolognaSplit
Score5838
Restaurants within 2 km of centre822268
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km2015
Museums & heritage. Bologna leads by 15 points.15
BolognaSplit
Score6752
Museums within 10 km5818
Museums within 2 km of centre4316
Share of museums within 2 km %7489
Unesco sites within 50 km34
Nightlife. Bologna leads by 12 points.12
BolognaSplit
Score5341
Drinking venues within 4 km720379
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre531263
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %7469
Nightclubs within 4 km3023
Nature & day trips. Bologna leads by 1 points.1
BolognaSplit
Score3938
Protected land share 50 km %79
Landscape blanket share 50 km %10
Land share of disc %10062
Park area within 2 km119 hectares30 hectares
Good for families. Bologna leads by 29 points.29
BolognaSplit
Score5526
Tourist attractions within 2 km329
Park area within 2 km119 hectares30 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km00
Sights concentration. Bologna leads by 18 points.18
BolognaSplit
Score6042
Notable places within 2 km12043
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Split leads by 12 points.12
BolognaSplit
Score6880
Price level global64.948.5
Daily budget€155€138
Year-round weather. Split leads by 2 points.2
BolognaSplit
Score6769
Monthly daytime high7 °C to 31.5 °C10.7 °C to 31 °C
Monthly rainfall34 mm to 75 mm25 mm to 117 mm
Dry months52
0255075100

Where they differ

Bologna is the stronger city for eating out, with about three times as many restaurants near the centre as Split and a wider range of kitchens. It also holds about three times as many attractions and as much park space near the centre, which matters with children, and about three times as many notable places within walking distance.

Split answers with the coast: 87 beaches nearby against Bologna's 2, and a sea that holds 21°C or more for four months of the year. Neither city has a theme park within reach.

Where they are alike

Neither city is picked for nature. 9% of the land around Split is protected and 7% around Bologna, and in both the countryside supports the trip rather than being the reason for it; Bologna's edge is park space in town, not wilder country.

Both peak near 31-32°C in July and both stay walkable in January. Nightlife in each sits mostly near the centre, Bologna's the larger of the two. National price levels are close as well, €155 in Italy and €138 in Croatia.

Which traveller are you?

A family with young children is better served in Bologna, which has about three times as many attractions and as much park space near the centre as Split, in a centre small enough to cross on foot. Neither has a theme park.

Anyone whose holiday is built around swimming should take Split: 87 beaches within reach and a sea peaking at 25°C in August, still warm into September.

For food and museums, Bologna, with roughly three times as many restaurants and museums near the centre. Split counters only on day trips, with 4 UNESCO-listed places within reach against Bologna's 3.

What the numbers don't tell you

The daily budget is a national estimate, the price level for restaurants and hotels in Italy and Croatia rather than a measurement of Bologna or Split: €155 against €138. A heavily visited city can sit further from its own country's average than the two national figures sit from each other, so this says nothing about which trip will cost you more.

Split's coastal strength is seasonal: the beaches count for little outside summer, and the months either side are the wettest, 117mm in November. Bologna's July and August reach 32°C with no sea to cool off in.

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
Split
11
12
15
18
23
28
31
31
25
21
16
12
Sea temperature, °C
Bologna
No coastline within reach
Split
14
13
14
15
18
22
24
25
23
21
19
16
Rainfall, mm
Bologna
36
36
49
54
50
37
34
40
75
75
70
58
Split
73
64
59
62
58
49
25
32
82
80
117
99
Daylight, hours per day
Bologna
9
10
12
13
15
16
15
14
13
11
10
9
Split
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
Split
5
5
7
7
9
10
12
11
8
7
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). Split: 1991-2020 normals, Split / Marjan (0.9 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Bologna is best in May and June, with highs of 24-29°C and rain near 37-50mm. July and August reach 32°C in a city with no sea. Autumn stays walkable but wetter, around 75mm in September and October.

Split's window runs June to September, sea at 22-25°C and July the driest month at 25mm. Winter daytimes are milder, 11-12°C, but wet, with 117mm in November. After October, rain is the main constraint on what you can do.

Getting there

Flying fromBolognaSplit
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
2 h 0 m
€114-267
BLQ · 6 km
2 h 30 m
€88-160
SPU · 12 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 40 m
€158-262
1 stop
BLQ · 6 km
2 h 5 m
€169-225
SPU · 12 km
AmsterdamAMS
1 h 50 m
no fares
BLQ · 6 km
2 h 10 m
€186-201
1 stop
SPU · 12 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
1 h 25 m
no fares
BLQ · 6 km
1 h 45 m
€169-224
SPU · 12 km
RomeFCO, CIA
1 h 0 m
no fares
BLQ · 6 km
1 h 5 m
€294
SPU · 12 km
ViennaVIE
1 h 20 m
€85-160
BLQ · 6 km
1 h 15 m
€233-281
SPU · 12 km
BarcelonaBCN
1 h 40 m
€42-75
BLQ · 6 km
2 h 5 m
€108-177
SPU · 12 km
MunichMUC
1 h 10 m
no fares
BLQ · 6 km
1 h 25 m
no fares
SPU · 12 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
2 h 25 m
€154-191
1 stop
BLQ · 6 km
1 h 55 m
no fares
SPU · 12 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
8 h 30 m
€637-650
VCE · 138 km
9 h 0 m
no fares
SPU · 12 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

MeasureBolognaSplit
Official languageItalianCroatian
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCFL230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation54 m0 m
Main airportBologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport (BLQ)6 km from centre97 non-stop destinationsSplit Saint Jerome Airport (SPU)12 km from centre70 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureBolognaSplit
City population387,971160,577
People per km²2,754–
Museums within 10 km6611
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km34
Distinct cuisines in the centre6231
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 Split 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.