VacationSelector

Genoa or Milan?

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

Your match

Genoa
56
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and year-round weather with your weighting.

Milan
✓ Best match
63
match

Wins on good for families and 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 the sea matters: 37 beaches within reach and four months warm enough to swim, plus the drier summer of the two.

Choose Milan if you are travelling with children, want museums and restaurants in quantity, or plan day trips into protected countryside. It has the fuller city offering; it simply has no coast.

Scoreboard

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

GenoaMilan
Beaches & swimming. Genoa leads by 73 points.73
GenoaMilan
Score730
Swim season months40
Beaches 10 km374
Coast distance0 km120 km
Water distance0 km—
Places to eat. Milan leads by 20 points.20
GenoaMilan
Score5070
Restaurants within 2 km of centre6911,991
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km1420
Museums & heritage. Milan leads by 19 points.19
GenoaMilan
Score5574
Museums within 10 km4787
Museums within 2 km of centre3355
Share of museums within 2 km %7063
Unesco sites within 50 km14
Nightlife. Milan leads by 25 points.25
GenoaMilan
Score5075
Drinking venues within 4 km6372,215
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre419961
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %6643
Nightclubs within 4 km1770
Nature & day trips. Milan leads by 30 points.30
GenoaMilan
Score3565
Protected land share 50 km %830
Landscape blanket share 50 km %011
Land share of disc %61100
Park area within 2 km29 hectares102 hectares
Good for families. Milan leads by 39 points.39
GenoaMilan
Score3877
Tourist attractions within 2 km2176
Park area within 2 km29 hectares102 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km05
Sights concentration. Milan leads by 13 points.13
GenoaMilan
Score6174
Notable places within 2 km130266
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Genoa and Milan are level on 68.
GenoaMilan
Score6868
Price level global64.964.9
Daily budget€155€155
Year-round weather. Genoa leads by 9 points.9
GenoaMilan
Score7364
Monthly daytime high11.7 °C to 27.9 °C7 °C to 28.6 °C
Monthly rainfall12 mm to 122 mm44 mm to 127 mm
Dry months30
0255075100

Where they differ

Genoa has the coast: 37 beaches nearby against Milan's 4, and four months when the sea reaches 21°C or more, which Milan never does. Summers are drier here too.

Milan carries the city side: about three times as many restaurants near the centre and twice as many museums, with more UNESCO-listed places in day-trip reach. It also suits families better, with far more attractions and park space near the centre, 5 theme parks where Genoa has none, and 30% of the surrounding land protected against 8%.

Where they are alike

Summer is the common ground. Both peak at 28-29°C in high summer and both are at their coolest in January, so the season that suits one suits the other.

They also share a compact centre, with notable places within walking distance in both, Milan simply holding about twice as many. And both sit on the same national price level, so cost is not what separates them.

Which traveller are you?

Anyone who wants to swim should take Genoa. It has 37 beaches nearby where Milan has 4, and a summer sea warm enough to use for months rather than days.

Families are better served in Milan: far more attractions and park space near the centre, and 5 theme parks within reach where Genoa has none. Genoa's draw for children is the shoreline instead.

For eating out and going out, Milan again: roughly three times as many restaurants and places to drink, and twice the museums, though its nightclubs are spread wider while Genoa's sit close to the centre.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value comparison between these two carries no information. Both sit on a national price level rather than on anything measured in Genoa or Milan, and the €155 a day beside it is one national estimate, not a reading of either city. Neither is the cheaper trip on this evidence.

Genoa's beach advantage is a summer advantage. The sea reaches 21°C or more in only four months, and the wettest months follow straight after, so an off-season visit gets the coastline without the use of it. Milan's warmer summer peak comes with a January at 7°C.

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
Milan
7
10
15
17
23
26
29
28
24
18
11
7
Sea temperature, °C
Genoa
14
13
14
15
18
22
24
25
23
20
18
16
Milan
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Genoa
58
41
47
67
40
26
12
20
72
101
122
89
Milan
54
44
50
78
102
75
57
83
116
113
127
49
Daylight, hours per day
Genoa
9
10
12
13
15
16
15
14
13
11
10
9
Milan
9
10
12
14
15
16
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Genoa
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
10
7
6
4
4
Milan
3
4
5
6
7
7
9
8
5
4
2
2

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Genoa: 1991-2020 normals, Genova / Sestri (6.7 km from centre). Milan: 1991-2020 normals, Novara / Cameri (41.2 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Genoa is at its best from July to September: highs of 25-28°C, a sea at 23-25°C and only 12-20mm of rain in midsummer. From October the rain turns heavy, over 100mm, and the swimming season closes.

Milan's window is narrower and wetter: June to August is warm, close to 29°C at the peak, but spring and early autumn carry far more rain than Genoa's, and January stays near 7°C.

Getting there

Flying fromGenoaMilan
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
8 h 15 m
€542-635
1 stop
MXP · 137 km
8 h 15 m
€542-635
1 stop
MXP · 40 km
MadridMAD
2 h 0 m
€63-91
MXP · 137 km
2 h 0 m
€63-91
MXP · 40 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
2 h 40 m
€140-309
MXP · 137 km
2 h 40 m
€140-309
MXP · 40 km
LisbonLIS
2 h 35 m
€78-142
MXP · 137 km
2 h 35 m
€78-142
MXP · 40 km
AthensATH
2 h 25 m
€91-99
MXP · 137 km
2 h 25 m
€91-99
MXP · 40 km
DubaiDXB, DWC
6 h 10 m
€375-563
MXP · 137 km
6 h 10 m
€375-563
MXP · 40 km
RomeFCO, CIA
1 h 10 m
no fares
GOA · 7 km
1 h 15 m
€116-135
LIN · 7 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 55 m
no fares
GOA · 7 km
1 h 45 m
€48-103
MXP · 40 km
Sao PauloGRU, VCP, CGH, RTE
11 h 50 m
€1,114-1167
2 stops
MXP · 137 km
11 h 50 m
€1,114-1167
2 stops
MXP · 40 km
BeijingPEK, PKX
10 h 10 m
€710-815
1 stop
MXP · 137 km
10 h 10 m
€710-815
1 stop
MXP · 40 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

MeasureGenoaMilan
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 m138 m
Main airportGenoa Cristoforo Colombo Airport (GOA)7 km from centre23 non-stop destinationsMilan Malpensa International Airport (MXP)40 km from centre203 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureGenoaMilan
City population558,7451,354,196
People per km²2,3257,453
Museums within 10 km5187
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km14
Distinct cuisines in the centre4179
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 months–

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Genoa or Milan 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 2026-09-01. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.