VacationSelector

Bordeaux or Toulouse?

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

Bordeaux
49
match

Wins on nature & day trips and nightlife with your weighting.

Toulouse
48
match

Wins on good for families and sights concentration 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 Bordeaux if the trip is built around what lies outside the city: much of the land around it is protected, far more than around Toulouse, and 4 UNESCO-listed places sit within day-trip reach.

Choose Toulouse if you want the sights close together and a city that works with children: far more attractions near the centre, 2 theme parks within reach, and a drier calendar through the year.

Scoreboard

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

BordeauxToulouse
Beaches & swimming. Bordeaux and Toulouse are level on 0.
BordeauxToulouse
Score00
Swim season months00
Beaches 10 km41
Coast distance18 km145 km
Water distance——
Places to eat. Toulouse leads by 2 points.2
BordeauxToulouse
Score6870
Restaurants within 2 km of centre975962
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km3237
Museums & heritage. Bordeaux leads by 4 points.4
BordeauxToulouse
Score5551
Museums within 10 km3527
Museums within 2 km of centre1718
Share of museums within 2 km %4967
Unesco sites within 50 km42
Nightlife. Bordeaux leads by 5 points.5
BordeauxToulouse
Score4843
Drinking venues within 4 km546389
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre427343
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %7888
Nightclubs within 4 km3236
Nature & day trips. Bordeaux leads by 30 points.30
BordeauxToulouse
Score5121
Protected land share 50 km %351
Landscape blanket share 50 km %350
Land share of disc %85100
Park area within 2 km43 hectares43 hectares
Good for families. Toulouse leads by 21 points.21
BordeauxToulouse
Score4566
Tourist attractions within 2 km2180
Park area within 2 km43 hectares43 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km12
Sights concentration. Toulouse leads by 6 points.6
BordeauxToulouse
Score4551
Notable places within 2 km5172
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Bordeaux and Toulouse are level on 62.
BordeauxToulouse
Score6262
Price level global73.773.7
Daily budget€160€160
Year-round weather. Toulouse leads by 3 points.3
BordeauxToulouse
Score6871
Monthly daytime high10.5 °C to 27.6 °C9.7 °C to 28.5 °C
Monthly rainfall47 mm to 114 mm37 mm to 74 mm
Dry months01
0255075100

Where they differ

Bordeaux is the better base for leaving town. Some 35% of the land around it is protected against 1% around Toulouse, and it has 4 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach where Toulouse has 2. It also has somewhat more museums, and somewhat more places to drink, though nightclub numbers are similar.

Toulouse answers with density and family use: about three times as many tourist attractions near the centre, 2 theme parks in reach against 1, and more notable places within walking distance of the middle.

Where they are alike

Neither is a place to swim. Bordeaux has 4 beaches nearby against Toulouse's 1, but neither gets a month of sea at 21°C or more, so a swimming day means driving out from either.

The rest sits close together. Restaurant numbers near the centre are comparable, both run daytime highs of about 11-28°C across the year with near-identical annual sunshine, and each has a similar count of nightclubs, most of them near the middle.

Which traveller are you?

A traveller who wants days out of the city should take Bordeaux: 35% of the surrounding land is protected, far more than around Toulouse, and there are 4 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach.

A family with young children is better served in Toulouse, which has about three times as many tourist attractions near the centre and 2 theme parks within reach against Bordeaux's 1, with comparable park space near the middle.

A short-break visitor on foot will get more from Toulouse, where more notable places sit within walking distance and the range of kitchens is wider. Bordeaux suits someone who wants museums and more places to drink.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value comparison between these two carries no information: the figure behind it is a national price level, identical by construction, and the €160 daily budget beside it is one national estimate rather than a measurement of either city. It says nothing about which trip costs more.

Bordeaux's 4 nearby beaches and 35% protected surroundings describe the region rather than the city: both mean a car and a day set aside, and neither city has a month of sea at 21°C or more. Toulouse's lead on attractions near the centre counts visitor sites of every kind, not specifically things that hold a child's attention.

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
Bordeaux
11
12
16
18
22
25
27
28
24
20
14
11
Toulouse
10
11
15
18
21
26
28
29
25
20
14
10
Rainfall, mm
Bordeaux
87
67
63
76
71
71
47
57
81
83
114
107
Toulouse
53
37
45
65
74
64
40
45
46
54
55
49
Daylight, hours per day
Bordeaux
9
10
12
14
15
16
15
14
13
11
10
9
Toulouse
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Bordeaux
3
4
6
6
7
8
8
8
7
5
3
3
Toulouse
3
4
6
6
7
8
8
8
7
5
3
3

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Bordeaux: 1991-2020 normals, Bordeaux / Merignac (9.5 km from centre). Toulouse: 1991-2020 normals, Toulouse / Blagnac (7 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Bordeaux is at its best from June to September, when highs run 25-28°C and July is the driest month at 47mm. From autumn the rain builds, and November and December are markedly wetter than anything Toulouse gets.

Toulouse holds its warmth into September at 25°C with 46mm of rain against Bordeaux's 81mm, which makes it the better late-season pick. It is the drier city across the year, and its winter months, though no warmer, are less wet.

Getting there

Flying fromBordeauxToulouse
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 15 m
€114-148
BOD · 11 km
1 h 25 m
€77-94
TLS · 7 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 30 m
€46-73
BOD · 11 km
1 h 40 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
LyonLYS
1 h 15 m
no fares
BOD · 11 km
1 h 5 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
AmsterdamAMS
1 h 45 m
no fares
BOD · 11 km
1 h 50 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
MarrakechRAK
2 h 35 m
no fares
BOD · 11 km
2 h 30 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
MarseilleMRS
1 h 15 m
no fares
BOD · 11 km
1 h 0 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
MadridMAD
1 h 20 m
no fares
BOD · 11 km
1 h 20 m
€120-143
TLS · 7 km
GenevaGVA
1 h 20 m
no fares
BOD · 11 km
1 h 15 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
LisbonLIS
1 h 50 m
€98-125
BOD · 11 km
1 h 55 m
€109-157
TLS · 7 km
MontrealYUL, YHU, YMX
7 h 10 m
no fares
BOD · 11 km
7 h 25 m
no fares
TLS · 7 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

MeasureBordeauxToulouse
Official languageFrenchFrench
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCE230 V, 50 HzCE230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation1 m115 m
Main airportBordeaux–Mérignac Airport (BOD)11 km from centre94 non-stop destinationsToulouse-Blagnac Airport (TLS)7 km from centre80 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureBordeauxToulouse
City population267,991514,819
People per km²5,4254,352
Museums within 10 km1824
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km42
Distinct cuisines in the centre81101

Where else could you go?

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