VacationSelector

Genoa or La Spezia?

Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Your match

Genoa
✓ Best match
56
match

Wins on sights concentration and nightlife with your weighting.

La Spezia
43
match

Wins on nature & day trips 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 Genoa if you want the trip to happen mostly on foot: a dense centre of notable places, a much wider choice of restaurants and somewhere to go after dinner.

Choose La Spezia if the point is what lies outside the town, with more protected land around it and two UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, and if you would rather have quiet evenings.

Scoreboard

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

GenoaLa Spezia
Beaches & swimming. Genoa and La Spezia are level on 73.
GenoaLa Spezia
Score7373
Swim season months44
Beaches 10 km3732
Coast distance0 km0 km
Water distance0 km0 km
Places to eat. Genoa leads by 19 points.19
GenoaLa Spezia
Score5031
Restaurants within 2 km of centre691235
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km1411
Museums & heritage. Genoa leads by 13 points.13
GenoaLa Spezia
Score5542
Museums within 10 km4715
Museums within 2 km of centre3310
Share of museums within 2 km %7067
Unesco sites within 50 km12
Nightlife. Genoa leads by 26 points.26
GenoaLa Spezia
Score5024
Drinking venues within 4 km637208
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre419176
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %6685
Nightclubs within 4 km171
Nature & day trips. La Spezia leads by 17 points.17
GenoaLa Spezia
Score3552
Protected land share 50 km %813
Landscape blanket share 50 km %00
Land share of disc %6151
Park area within 2 km29 hectares23 hectares
Good for families. Genoa leads by 18 points.18
GenoaLa Spezia
Score3820
Tourist attractions within 2 km213
Park area within 2 km29 hectares23 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km02
Sights concentration. Genoa leads by 54 points.54
GenoaLa Spezia
Score617
Notable places within 2 km1306
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Genoa and La Spezia are level on 68.
GenoaLa Spezia
Score6868
Price level global64.964.9
Daily budget€155€155
Year-round weather. Genoa leads by 3 points.3
GenoaLa Spezia
Score7370
Monthly daytime high11.7 °C to 27.9 °C11.4 °C to 30.3 °C
Monthly rainfall12 mm to 122 mm32 mm to 132 mm
Dry months32
0255075100

Where they differ

Genoa puts most of a trip within walking distance: many times as many notable places near the centre as La Spezia, about three times as many restaurants and a wider range of kitchens, and about three times as many places to drink, plus far more clubs.

La Spezia leans outward instead. 13% of the land around it is protected against 8% around Genoa, and it has 2 theme parks within reach where Genoa has none, though the town itself gives you little to walk between.

Where they are alike

Both sit on the water: the sea is 0km from either centre, with 37 beaches around Genoa and 32 around La Spezia, and each has 4 months when the sea holds 21°C or more.

The weather follows the same pattern in both, warm and dry through summer, wet in late autumn, with similar sunshine across the year. Both also have museums and heritage in the mix, though Genoa carries far more of them.

Which traveller are you?

If your days are spent walking between places to eat, museums and somewhere to drink afterwards, Genoa is the one: the choice near the centre is several times wider on each count.

If the walking happens outside the town, on protected land and towards UNESCO-listed places, La Spezia is built for that, provided you have transport and travel in the drier months.

Families are better served in Genoa, which has many times as many attractions near the centre and more park space close by, although La Spezia counters with 2 theme parks within reach.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value comparison between these two carries no information: both rest on the same national price level, so it cannot tell you which city costs more, and the €155 a day beside it is one national estimate, not a measurement of either place.

The two stand level on beaches, but that rests on counts and on a sea that peaks in the same August weeks in both, when the coast is busiest. And La Spezia's strength lies in the land around it, not in the town, so it depends on transport and on the drier months; that ground is less usable once autumn rain sets in.

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
Genoa
12
12
15
18
21
25
27
28
25
20
16
13
La Spezia
11
13
16
18
23
27
30
30
26
21
16
12
Sea temperature, °C
Genoa
14
13
14
15
18
22
24
25
23
20
18
16
La Spezia
14
13
14
15
18
22
24
25
23
20
18
16
Rainfall, mm
Genoa
58
41
47
67
40
26
12
20
72
101
122
89
La Spezia
68
58
59
65
63
41
32
35
102
125
132
95
Daylight, hours per day
Genoa
9
10
12
13
15
16
15
14
13
11
10
9
La Spezia
9
10
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Genoa
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
10
7
6
4
4
La Spezia
4
4
6
6
8
9
11
10
7
5
4
3

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Genoa: 1991-2020 normals, Genova / Sestri (6.7 km from centre). La Spezia: 1991-2020 normals, Pisa / S. Giusto (64.8 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Genoa is the drier bet in high summer: 12mm in July against La Spezia's 32mm, with days at 27-28°C and the sea near its warmest for swimming. September still reaches 25°C by day, though the rain has returned by then.

La Spezia runs warmer, up to 30°C at the peak, and its window for the country around it is May and June, before the heat sets in. It is the wetter of the two in most months, and from October both pass 100mm, which shuts that ground down.

Getting there

Flying fromGenoaLa Spezia
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 55 m
no fares
GOA · 7 km
2 h 5 m
€48-62
PSA · 65 km
MadridMAD
2 h 0 m
€63-91
MXP · 137 km
2 h 5 m
€88-193
PSA · 65 km
TiranaTIA
1 h 45 m
no fares
GOA · 7 km
1 h 35 m
no fares
PSA · 65 km
RomeFCO, CIA
1 h 10 m
no fares
GOA · 7 km
1 h 10 m
no fares
GOA · 86 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
2 h 40 m
€140-309
MXP · 137 km
2 h 25 m
€154-191
1 stop
BLQ · 125 km
PalermoPMO
1 h 35 m
no fares
GOA · 7 km
1 h 25 m
no fares
PSA · 65 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
1 h 15 m
€67-76
LIN · 119 km
1 h 30 m
no fares
PSA · 65 km
CataniaCTA
1 h 45 m
€80-177
1 stop
GOA · 7 km
1 h 35 m
€55-66
PSA · 65 km
ManchesterMAN
2 h 0 m
no fares
MXP · 137 km
2 h 20 m
no fares
PSA · 65 km
DubaiDXB, DWC
6 h 10 m
€375-563
MXP · 137 km
5 h 55 m
no fares
BLQ · 125 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

MeasureGenoaLa Spezia
Official languageItalianItalian
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCFL230 V, 50 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation20 m3 m
Main airportGenoa Cristoforo Colombo Airport (GOA)7 km from centre23 non-stop destinationsPisa International Airport (PSA)65 km from centre81 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureGenoaLa Spezia
City population558,74592,119
People per km²2,3251,792
Museums within 10 km5112
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km12
Distinct cuisines in the centre4122
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 months4 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Genoa or La Spezia 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.