VacationSelector
San Petronio on Piazza Maggiore, Bologna
BolognaSan Petronio on Piazza Maggiore
The beach and the oceanfront hotels from the fishing pier, Virginia Beach
Virginia BeachThe beach and the oceanfront hotels from the fishing pier

Photos: Bologna by Vanni Lazzari, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Virginia Beach by SchuminWeb, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Bologna or Virginia Beach?

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

  • getting around
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

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

Choose Virginia Beach for

  • beaches
  • families
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Virginia Beach’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, Virginia Beach 77: Virginia Beach leads by 47 points.
Food & drink. Bologna 82, Virginia Beach 42: Bologna leads by 40 points.
Culture & sights. Bologna 77, Virginia Beach 30: Bologna leads by 47 points.
Nightlife. Bologna 58, Virginia Beach 37: Bologna leads by 21 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bologna 52, Virginia Beach 56: Virginia Beach leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Bologna 95, Virginia Beach 64: Bologna leads by 31 points.
Good for families. Bologna 50, Virginia Beach 75: Virginia Beach leads by 25 points.
Getting around. Bologna 76, Virginia Beach 27: Bologna leads by 49 points.
Shopping & style. Bologna 55, Virginia Beach 32: Bologna leads by 23 points.
Affordability. Bologna 48, Virginia Beach 40: Bologna leads by 8 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bologna 60, Virginia Beach 38: Bologna leads by 22 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bologna 40, Virginia Beach 32: Bologna leads by 8 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bologna and Virginia Beach.

Your match

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

Bologna
Best match
60match

Wins on getting around and culture and sights with your weighting.

Virginia Beach
46match

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

Virginia Beach in July

31 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
152 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
25 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
BolognaVirginia Beach

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). Virginia Beach: 1991-2020 normals, Virginia Beach / Gatewood Park (5.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBolognaVirginia Beach
Official languageItalian-
CurrencyEuro (EUR)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCFL230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number112911
Elevation54 m7 m
Main airportBologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport (BLQ)6 km from centre98 non-stop destinationsNorfolk International Airport (ORF)20 km from centre42 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureBolognaVirginia Beach
City population387,971459,470
People per km²2,754-
Museums within 10 km682
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km30
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 Virginia Beach 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.