Como or Pisa?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on nature & day trips with your weighting.
Wins on good for families 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 Como if the lake and the country around it are the point of the trip: 8 beaches on the shore, a large share of protected land within reach, and quiet evenings in a small town.
Choose Pisa if you want the town itself to do the work: more museums, far more packed within walking distance of the centre, attractions and theme parks for children, and warm sea in high summer.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Pisa leads by 21 points.21
| Como | Pisa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 21 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 4 |
| Beaches 10 km | 8 | 1 |
| Coast distance | 156 km | 10 km |
| Water distance | — | 10 km |
Places to eat. Pisa leads by 9 points.9
| Como | Pisa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 25 | 34 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 259 | 379 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 7 | 9 |
Museums & heritage. Pisa leads by 9 points.9
| Como | Pisa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 46 | 55 |
| Museums within 10 km | 9 | 27 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 6 | 22 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 67 | 81 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 8 | 3 |
Nightlife. Pisa leads by 4 points.4
| Como | Pisa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 24 | 28 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 213 | 232 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 143 | 203 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 67 | 88 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 1 | 3 |
Nature & day trips. Como leads by 1 points.1
| Como | Pisa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 40 | 39 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 23 | 9 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 5 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 65 |
| Park area within 2 km | 15 hectares | 40 hectares |
Good for families. Pisa leads by 32 points.32
| Como | Pisa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 15 | 47 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 6 | 20 |
| Park area within 2 km | 15 hectares | 40 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 0 | 2 |
Sights concentration. Pisa leads by 17 points.17
| Como | Pisa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 30 | 47 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 22 | 58 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Como and Pisa are level on 68.
| Como | Pisa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 68 |
| Price level global | 64.9 | 64.9 |
| Daily budget | €155 | €155 |
Year-round weather. Pisa leads by 12 points.12
| Como | Pisa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 58 | 70 |
| Monthly daytime high | 7.1 °C to 27.3 °C | 11.4 °C to 30.3 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 61 mm to 178 mm | 32 mm to 132 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 2 |
Where they differ
Como's advantage is water and open country: 8 beaches close by, all lake rather than sea, and 23% of the land around it protected against 9% around Pisa. The surroundings, not the town, are the reason to go.
Pisa is the easier place to walk. It holds about three times as many notable places within reach of the centre, considerably more attractions and park space for children, and 2 theme parks where Como has none. Its sea stays above 21°C for four months of the year.
Where they are alike
Nature and day trips come out level, though they are reached differently: 23% of the land around Como is protected against 9% around Pisa, while Pisa has more park space near the centre.
Nightlife is modest in both, with about the same number of places to drink and most of them near the centre. Eating out is close in scale, Pisa with somewhat more restaurants and a somewhat wider range of kitchens, and both hold a working set of museums.
Which traveller are you?
Families are better served in Pisa: roughly three times as many attractions and as much park space near the centre as Como, 2 theme parks within reach, and sea above 21°C through high summer.
Swimmers and walkers should look at Como. Its 8 beaches are lake beaches, with no warm-sea months, but 23% of the surrounding land is protected, and that is where the walking and the day trips come from.
A short-break traveller who wants to see things on foot does better in Pisa, with about three times as many notable places within walking distance and a deeper set of museums. Como's counterweight is 8 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach.
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, and the €155 a day beside it is one national estimate rather than a measurement of either city, so it cannot tell you which trip will cost less.
Como's 8 beaches are lake beaches, and no month brings the water to 21°C, so the count promises more swimming than the climate supports. The season you would use them is also Como's wettest, near 158mm a month, while Pisa's driest months are precisely its hottest.
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.
Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Como: 1991-2020 normals, Lugano (23 km from centre). Pisa: 1991-2020 normals, Pisa / S. Giusto (3.9 km from centre).
Como's best stretch is narrow: July and August at 27°C, but rain sits near 158mm even at the peak, and spring and early autumn are wetter still. Winter is drier, though highs only hold at 7-9°C.
Pisa carries the longer season. High summer is dry as well as hot, 30°C in July and August on 32-35mm of rain, and the sea stays warm enough to swim into September. Late autumn is the part to skip, with rainfall above 125mm a month.
Getting there
| Flying from | Como | Pisa |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 45 m €48-103 MXP · 34 km | 2 h 5 m €48-62 PSA · 4 km |
| TiranaTIA | 1 h 45 m €31-93 BGY · 51 km | 1 h 35 m no fares PSA · 4 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 20 m €46-63 MXP · 34 km | 1 h 40 m no fares PSA · 4 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 15 m €116-135 LIN · 43 km | 55 m €136-139 1 stop FLR · 65 km |
| PalermoPMO | 1 h 45 m €27-28 MXP · 34 km | 1 h 25 m no fares PSA · 4 km |
| CataniaCTA | 1 h 55 m €36-88 MXP · 34 km | 1 h 35 m €55-66 PSA · 4 km |
| CagliariCAG | 1 h 30 m €128-151 LIN · 43 km | 1 h 15 m no fares PSA · 4 km |
| MadridMAD | 2 h 0 m €63-91 MXP · 34 km | 2 h 5 m €88-193 PSA · 4 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 30 m €34-53 MXP · 34 km | 1 h 35 m €113-168 FLR · 65 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 6 h 10 m €375-563 MXP · 34 km | 5 h 55 m no fares BLQ · 115 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 2026-10, 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
| Measure | Como | Pisa |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Italian | Italian |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CFL230 V, 50 Hz | CFL230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 | 112 |
| Elevation | 201 m | 4 m |
| Main airport | Milan Malpensa International Airport (MXP)34 km from centre203 non-stop destinations | Pisa International Airport (PSA)4 km from centre81 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Como | Pisa |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 83,184 | 88,737 |
| People per km² | 2,242 | 479 |
| Museums within 10 km | 9 | 27 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 8 | 3 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 22 | 29 |
| 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 Como or Pisa somewhere new.