Florence or Genoa?
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
Wins on museums & heritage and good for families with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming and year-round weather 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 Florence if the trip is built around museums and walking: far more museums than Genoa, more UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, and notable sights packed tighter around the centre.
Choose Genoa if you want to swim: 37 beaches nearby where Florence has none, sea at 21°C or more through the summer, and gentler summer heat near 28°C.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Genoa leads by 73 points.73
| Florence | Genoa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 73 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 4 |
| Beaches 10 km | 0 | 37 |
| Coast distance | 78 km | 0 km |
| Water distance | — | 0 km |
Places to eat. Florence leads by 9 points.9
| Florence | Genoa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 59 | 50 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 1,299 | 691 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 15 | 14 |
Museums & heritage. Florence leads by 27 points.27
| Florence | Genoa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 82 | 55 |
| Museums within 10 km | 132 | 47 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 93 | 33 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 70 | 70 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 4 | 1 |
Nightlife. Florence leads by 6 points.6
| Florence | Genoa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 56 | 50 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 818 | 637 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 599 | 419 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 73 | 66 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 34 | 17 |
Nature & day trips. Florence leads by 3 points.3
| Florence | Genoa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 38 | 35 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 9 | 8 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 2 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 61 |
| Park area within 2 km | 86 hectares | 29 hectares |
Good for families. Florence leads by 14 points.14
| Florence | Genoa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 52 | 38 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 30 | 21 |
| Park area within 2 km | 86 hectares | 29 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 0 | 0 |
Sights concentration. Florence leads by 14 points.14
| Florence | Genoa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 75 | 61 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 292 | 130 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Florence and Genoa are level on 68.
| Florence | Genoa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 68 |
| Price level global | 64.9 | 64.9 |
| Daily budget | €155 | €155 |
Year-round weather. Genoa leads by 5 points.5
| Florence | Genoa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 73 |
| Monthly daytime high | 10.8 °C to 32.7 °C | 11.7 °C to 27.9 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 32 mm to 132 mm | 12 mm to 122 mm |
| Dry months | 2 | 3 |
Where they differ
Florence has about three times as many museums as Genoa, and 4 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Genoa's 1. Twice as many notable places sit within walking distance of the centre, with a wider choice of restaurants and bars among them.
Genoa answers with the coast: 37 beaches nearby where Florence has none, and sea warm enough to swim in through the summer. Its summer air is gentler too, topping out near 28°C against Florence's 33°C.
Where they are alike
Neither city is a strong base for getting into nature: protected land nearby is much the same, 9% around Florence and 8% around Genoa, so day trips lean on towns rather than landscape.
They also line up on weather, eating and evenings. Both are warmest in August and coolest in January, when highs sit at 11-12°C, both offer a similar range of kitchens, and in both the drinking places sit mostly near the centre, so a night out is a short walk.
Which traveller are you?
A traveller going for art and history should take Florence: about three times as many museums as Genoa, 4 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, and enough notable sights near the centre to fill days on foot.
Anyone whose holiday involves swimming should take Genoa: 37 beaches nearby, none in Florence, and a sea that reaches 25°C at the end of summer, with air staying near 28°C.
Families are better served in Florence, with more attractions near the centre and roughly three times the park space, though neither city has a theme park within reach, so plans depend on what is walkable.
What the numbers don't tell you
The value figure here is a national price level, identical for the two by construction, so it carries no information about which city costs less. The €155 daily budget beside it is a single national estimate rather than a measurement of Florence or Genoa, and should not be read as a trait of either.
Genoa's beaches are counted, not graded: 37 nearby says nothing about crowding, and the sea only passes 21°C in the holiday months, when the coast is busiest. Florence's driest stretch is also its hottest, so the least rain arrives with 33°C days.
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. Florence: 1995-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Firenze / Peretola (5.6 km from centre). Genoa: 1991-2020 normals, Genova / Sestri (6.7 km from centre).
Florence is at its best in May and June, with highs of 24-29°C. July and August are the driest months of its year but the hottest, near 33°C, and autumn turns heavy, with November above 130mm.
Genoa's window is July and August: highs of 27-28°C, sea at 24-25°C and only 12-20mm of rain, when Florence is both hotter and wetter. June is a quieter alternative, already dry and warm enough for the sea.
Getting there
| Flying from | Florence | Genoa |
|---|---|---|
| MadridMAD | 2 h 10 m no fares FLR · 6 km | 2 h 0 m €63-91 MXP · 137 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 40 m €143-159 FLR · 6 km | 1 h 30 m no fares GOA · 7 km |
| TiranaTIA | 1 h 35 m no fares PSA · 70 km | 1 h 45 m no fares GOA · 7 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 1 h 30 m no fares FLR · 6 km | 1 h 15 m €67-76 LIN · 119 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 55 m €136-139 1 stop FLR · 6 km | 1 h 10 m no fares GOA · 7 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 5 m €180-199 1 stop FLR · 6 km | 1 h 55 m no fares GOA · 7 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 55 m €232-255 2 stops FLR · 6 km | 1 h 45 m €223-292 2 stops GOA · 7 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 2 h 25 m €154-191 1 stop BLQ · 85 km | 2 h 40 m €140-309 MXP · 137 km |
| LisbonLIS | 2 h 45 m €267-328 1 stop FLR · 6 km | 2 h 35 m €78-142 MXP · 137 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 5 h 55 m no fares BLQ · 85 km | 6 h 10 m €375-563 MXP · 137 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 | Florence | Genoa |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | 50 m | 20 m |
| Main airport | Florence Airport, Peretola (FLR)6 km from centre36 non-stop destinations | Genoa Cristoforo Colombo Airport (GOA)7 km from centre23 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Florence | Genoa |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 360,930 | 558,745 |
| People per km² | 3,528 | 2,325 |
| Museums within 10 km | 140 | 51 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 4 | 1 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 62 | 41 |
| 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 Florence or Genoa somewhere new.