VacationSelector

Genoa or Montpellier?

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 beaches & swimming and museums & heritage with your weighting.

Montpellier
47
match

Wins on places to eat 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 swimming is the point: the sea starts at the centre, there are more beaches within reach and a longer warm-sea window, and its museums and walkable sights fill the days it rains.

Choose Montpellier if you want a wider range of kitchens, more park space and protected land nearby, theme parks within reach for children, and a drier spring before the summer heat.

Scoreboard

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

GenoaMontpellier
Beaches & swimming. Genoa leads by 41 points.41
GenoaMontpellier
Score7332
Swim season months42
Beaches 10 km378
Coast distance0 km9 km
Water distance0 km9 km
Places to eat. Montpellier leads by 15 points.15
GenoaMontpellier
Score5065
Restaurants within 2 km of centre691737
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km1434
Museums & heritage. Genoa leads by 29 points.29
GenoaMontpellier
Score5526
Museums within 10 km4714
Museums within 2 km of centre333
Share of museums within 2 km %7021
Unesco sites within 50 km12
Nightlife. Genoa leads by 12 points.12
GenoaMontpellier
Score5038
Drinking venues within 4 km637318
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre419265
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %6683
Nightclubs within 4 km1725
Nature & day trips. Montpellier leads by 8 points.8
GenoaMontpellier
Score3543
Protected land share 50 km %815
Landscape blanket share 50 km %010
Land share of disc %6170
Park area within 2 km29 hectares55 hectares
Good for families. Montpellier leads by 6 points.6
GenoaMontpellier
Score3844
Tourist attractions within 2 km218
Park area within 2 km29 hectares55 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km07
Sights concentration. Genoa leads by 23 points.23
GenoaMontpellier
Score6138
Notable places within 2 km13035
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Genoa leads by 6 points.6
GenoaMontpellier
Score6862
Price level global64.973.7
Daily budget€155€160
Year-round weather. Montpellier leads by 1 points.1
GenoaMontpellier
Score7374
Monthly daytime high11.7 °C to 27.9 °C12 °C to 29.6 °C
Monthly rainfall12 mm to 122 mm17 mm to 93 mm
Dry months35
0255075100

Where they differ

Genoa sits on the water: the sea is 0km from the centre, with 37 beaches nearby against Montpellier's 8 and twice as many months of sea at 21°C or more. It has about three times as many museums, and three times as many notable places within walking distance of the centre.

Montpellier's beaches start 9km out, but its restaurants cover a much wider range of kitchens, it has about twice as much park space near the centre, and a larger share of the surrounding land is protected.

Where they are alike

Both run the same annual rhythm: January highs of 12°C, summers peaking at 28-30°C, and sun through much of the year. Neither is a winter swimming trip, and both are comfortable from spring into autumn.

Family attractions and outdoor day trips are modest in both: each has park space near the centre and protected land around it, without either dominating. The national daily budget estimates behind them, €155 for Italy and €160 for France, are close too.

Which traveller are you?

If swimming is the point of the trip, Genoa: the sea is 0km from the centre, there are 37 beaches nearby against Montpellier's 8, and the water stays at 21°C or more for twice as long.

For eating and evenings out, it splits. Montpellier has the wider range of kitchens and somewhat more nightclubs; Genoa has about twice as many places to drink. In both, most sit near the centre.

Families with young children lean to Montpellier, which has 7 theme parks within reach where Genoa has none, plus more park space near the centre. Genoa answers with far more attractions packed into a walkable centre.

What the numbers don't tell you

Genoa's beach advantage sits in the months everyone else takes: the warmest sea and the driest weather both fall in July and August, so the beaches that count in its favour are also at their busiest then. Step outside that window and autumn rainfall of 101-122mm makes it a different trip.

The daily budget figures are national estimates of restaurant and hotel price levels, €155 for Italy and €160 for France, not measurements of either city. A port or heavily visited city can sit further from its own national average than the gap between the two countries, so treat neither as the cheaper choice.

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
Montpellier
12
13
16
19
23
27
30
29
25
21
16
13
Sea temperature, °C
Genoa
14
13
14
15
18
22
24
25
23
20
18
16
Montpellier
12
12
12
14
16
19
21
22
20
18
16
14
Rainfall, mm
Genoa
58
41
47
67
40
26
12
20
72
101
122
89
Montpellier
56
35
39
56
46
33
17
36
88
93
78
59
Daylight, hours per day
Genoa
9
10
12
13
15
16
15
14
13
11
10
9
Montpellier
9
11
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
Montpellier
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
10
8
6
5
5

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Genoa: 1991-2020 normals, Genova / Sestri (6.7 km from centre). Montpellier: 1991-2020 normals, Montpellier (7.8 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Genoa is at its best in July and August: highs of 27-28°C, sea at 24-25°C and rainfall of 12-20mm, the driest weeks of its year. September still swims at 23°C, but rain climbs to 72mm and then 101mm in October.

Montpellier suits spring better, with April and May at 19-23°C and 46-56mm of rain, and June at 27°C. July reaches 30°C, hot for walking, and its sea only reaches 22°C in August.

Getting there

Flying fromGenoaMontpellier
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 30 m
no fares
GOA · 7 km
1 h 25 m
no fares
MPL · 8 km
MadridMAD
2 h 0 m
€63-91
MXP · 137 km
1 h 35 m
no fares
MRS · 109 km
LisbonLIS
2 h 35 m
€78-142
MXP · 137 km
2 h 10 m
€136-184
1 stop
MRS · 109 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
1 h 15 m
€67-76
LIN · 119 km
1 h 35 m
no fares
MRS · 109 km
BordeauxBOD
1 h 35 m
no fares
MXP · 137 km
1 h 15 m
no fares
MRS · 109 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
2 h 40 m
€140-309
MXP · 137 km
3 h 5 m
no fares
MPL · 8 km
TunisTUN
1 h 50 m
no fares
MXP · 137 km
1 h 40 m
no fares
MRS · 109 km
MunichMUC
1 h 15 m
€207-240
1 stop
GOA · 7 km
1 h 35 m
no fares
MRS · 109 km
MontrealYUL, YHU, YMX
7 h 50 m
no fares
MXP · 137 km
7 h 45 m
no fares
MRS · 109 km
SeoulICN, GMP
11 h 5 m
no fares
MXP · 137 km
11 h 35 m
no fares
MRS · 109 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

MeasureGenoaMontpellier
Official languageItalianFrench
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCFL230 V, 50 HzCE230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation20 m7 m
Main airportGenoa Cristoforo Colombo Airport (GOA)7 km from centre23 non-stop destinationsMontpellier-Méditerranée Airport (MPL)8 km from centre36 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureGenoaMontpellier
City population558,745310,240
People per km²2,3255,452
Museums within 10 km5114
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km12
Distinct cuisines in the centre4165
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 months2 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Genoa or Montpellier 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.