Florence or Palermo?
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, level with your weighting
Wins on museums & heritage and sights concentration 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 about museums and walking. It has many times as many museums as Palermo, more UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, and far more notable places within walking distance of the centre.
Choose Palermo if you want to swim. It has 13 beaches nearby where Florence has none, five months of sea warm enough for it, and dry, near-rainless summers.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Palermo leads by 67 points.67
| Florence | Palermo | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 67 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 5 |
| Beaches 10 km | 0 | 13 |
| Coast distance | 78 km | 1 km |
| Water distance | — | 1 km |
Places to eat. Florence leads by 9 points.9
| Florence | Palermo | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 59 | 50 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 1,299 | 807 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 15 | 13 |
Museums & heritage. Florence leads by 32 points.32
| Florence | Palermo | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 82 | 50 |
| Museums within 10 km | 132 | 32 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 93 | 26 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 70 | 81 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 4 | 1 |
Nightlife. Florence leads by 3 points.3
| Florence | Palermo | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 56 | 53 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 818 | 799 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 599 | 515 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 73 | 64 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 34 | 16 |
Nature & day trips. Florence leads by 2 points.2
| Florence | Palermo | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 38 | 36 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 9 | 4 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 2 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 45 |
| Park area within 2 km | 86 hectares | 63 hectares |
Good for families. Florence leads by 11 points.11
| Florence | Palermo | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 52 | 41 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 30 | 16 |
| Park area within 2 km | 86 hectares | 63 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 0 | 0 |
Sights concentration. Florence leads by 18 points.18
| Florence | Palermo | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 75 | 57 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 292 | 104 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Florence and Palermo are level on 68.
| Florence | Palermo | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 68 |
| Price level global | 64.9 | 64.9 |
| Daily budget | €155 | €155 |
Year-round weather. Palermo leads by 9 points.9
| Florence | Palermo | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 77 |
| Monthly daytime high | 10.8 °C to 32.7 °C | 12.6 °C to 27.8 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 32 mm to 132 mm | 4 mm to 71 mm |
| Dry months | 2 | 7 |
Where they differ
Florence has many times as many museums as Palermo, and four UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Palermo's one. About three times as many notable places sit within walking distance of the centre, and roughly twice as many restaurants, across a somewhat wider range of kitchens.
Palermo has 13 beaches nearby where Florence has none, and five months when the sea is at 21°C or more. It is also the drier city through summer, where Florence's heaviest rain arrives in autumn.
Where they are alike
Neither city is a strong base for nature. Only a small share of the land around each is protected, 9% near Florence and 4% near Palermo, and both offer limited park space near the centre rather than open country.
Nights out and eating are close too. Both have a similar number of places to drink, most of them near the centre, though Florence has about twice as many nightclubs, and both keep a reasonable choice of restaurants centrally.
Which traveller are you?
Someone travelling for art and history should pick Florence. It has many times as many museums as Palermo, four UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, and enough notable buildings inside walking distance that no transport is needed.
A family with a beach week in mind is better served by Palermo, with 13 beaches nearby and the sea at 22-27°C in high summer. Florence has more attractions and park space near the centre, but no coast at all.
Anyone planning around eating and going out will find both workable, with a similar number of places to drink near the centre in each. Florence has the wider choice of restaurants and about twice as many nightclubs.
What the numbers don't tell you
The value comparison between these two carries no information. Both take the same national price level, and the €155 daily budget beside it is one national estimate rather than a measurement of either city, so nothing here says which is the cheaper trip.
Palermo's beach advantage is confined to the months when the sea is at 21°C or more, and those are exactly the months when everyone else travels; outside them the coast is scenery. Florence's year-round weather looks even only because a cold winter, at 11°C, and a hot summer, at 33°C, average each other out.
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). Palermo: 1961-1990 normals, Ustica (66.8 km from centre).
Florence is best in May and June, when highs run 24-29°C and the rain eases. High summer is hotter here than in Palermo, and late autumn is its wettest stretch, over 100mm a month, which pushes the day indoors.
Palermo's window is longer and later, June to September: highs of 24-28°C, sea at 22-27°C, and a summer close to rainless, 4mm in July. Its winter stays milder for walking, though those are the months its rain arrives.
Getting there
| Flying from | Florence | Palermo |
|---|---|---|
| RomeFCO, CIA | 55 m €136-139 1 stop FLR · 6 km | 1 h 10 m €40-52 PMO · 25 km |
| MilanMXP, BGY, LIN | 1 h 5 m no fares EBA · 139 km | 1 h 45 m €31-110 PMO · 25 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 40 m €143-159 FLR · 6 km | 2 h 25 m €101-135 PMO · 25 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 5 m €180-199 1 stop FLR · 6 km | 2 h 50 m no fares PMO · 25 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 35 m €113-168 FLR · 6 km | 1 h 50 m €49-107 PMO · 25 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 55 m €232-255 2 stops FLR · 6 km | 2 h 40 m no fares PMO · 25 km |
| ZurichZRH | 1 h 10 m no fares FLR · 6 km | 1 h 55 m €161-283 1 stop PMO · 25 km |
| MunichMUC | 1 h 15 m no fares FLR · 6 km | 2 h 0 m €175-215 1 stop PMO · 25 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 1 h 30 m no fares FLR · 6 km | 2 h 15 m €101-154 1 stop PMO · 25 km |
| Tel Aviv YafoTLV | 3 h 35 m no fares BLQ · 85 km | 3 h 10 m €151-346 1 stop PMO · 25 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
| Measure | Florence | Palermo |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | 14 m |
| Main airport | Florence Airport, Peretola (FLR)6 km from centre36 non-stop destinations | Falcone–Borsellino Airport (PMO)25 km from centre103 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Florence | Palermo |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 360,930 | 630,167 |
| People per km² | 3,528 | 3,924 |
| Museums within 10 km | 140 | 42 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 4 | 1 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 62 | 33 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | – | 5 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Florence or Palermo somewhere new.