Genoa or Naples?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on places to eat with your weighting.
Wins on museums & heritage and sights concentration 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 and food lead the trip: the sea sits at the centre, with more beaches nearby and kitchens covering a wider range, and summer tops out near 28°C rather than the hotter Naples afternoons.
Choose Naples if the draw is museums and heritage, a denser centre to walk, livelier evenings with more bars and clubs, and theme parks within reach for younger children.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Naples leads by 3 points.3
| Genoa | Naples | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 73 | 76 |
| Swim season months | 4 | 5 |
| Beaches 10 km | 37 | 29 |
| Coast distance | 0 km | 1 km |
| Water distance | 0 km | 1 km |
Places to eat. Genoa leads by 4 points.4
| Genoa | Naples | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 50 | 46 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 691 | 1,244 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 14 | 7 |
Museums & heritage. Naples leads by 23 points.23
| Genoa | Naples | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 55 | 78 |
| Museums within 10 km | 47 | 84 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 33 | 68 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 70 | 81 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 1 | 5 |
Nightlife. Naples leads by 16 points.16
| Genoa | Naples | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 50 | 66 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 637 | 1,389 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 419 | 964 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 66 | 69 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 17 | 40 |
Nature & day trips. Naples leads by 2 points.2
| Genoa | Naples | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 35 | 37 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 8 | 7 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 61 | 56 |
| Park area within 2 km | 29 hectares | 41 hectares |
Good for families. Naples leads by 3 points.3
| Genoa | Naples | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 38 | 41 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 21 | 11 |
| Park area within 2 km | 29 hectares | 41 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 0 | 3 |
Sights concentration. Naples leads by 17 points.17
| Genoa | Naples | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 61 | 78 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 130 | 351 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Genoa and Naples are level on 68.
| Genoa | Naples | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 68 |
| Price level global | 64.9 | 64.9 |
| Daily budget | €155 | €155 |
Year-round weather. Genoa and Naples are level on 73.
| Genoa | Naples | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 73 | 73 |
| Monthly daytime high | 11.7 °C to 27.9 °C | 13.1 °C to 31.4 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 12 mm to 122 mm | 17 mm to 159 mm |
| Dry months | 3 | 3 |
Where they differ
Genoa has the sea at its centre, 0km away, and 37 beaches nearby against Naples's 29. Its restaurants are fewer in number but span a much wider range of kitchens, and more tourist attractions sit close to the centre.
Naples has about twice as many museums, and 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Genoa's 1. Roughly three times as many notable places lie within walking distance of its centre, and there are about twice as many bars and clubs, most of them central. Three theme parks are within reach; Genoa has none.
Where they are alike
Both are warm-weather coastal cities, running 12-28°C in Genoa and 13-31°C in Naples, with similar annual sunshine and a short summer spell of 40mm of rain or less. Summers are hot and dry in both, winters mild rather than cold.
They are close, too, on countryside and family appeal: protected land accounts for 8% of the area around Genoa and 7% around Naples, and both suit children in different ways. Eating out is well served in each.
Which traveller are you?
If you travel for museums and old buildings, Naples is the clearer choice: about twice the museums, 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, and a centre where the notable places cluster within walking distance.
If swimming is the reason for the trip, Genoa puts the water 0km from the centre with more beaches nearby, though Naples holds sea above 21°C for one month longer, into the shoulder season.
Families split the difference. Naples has three theme parks and more park space near the centre; Genoa has about twice as many tourist attractions in town, which suits older children better.
What the numbers don't tell you
The value comparison between these two carries no information. That figure is a national price level, identical for both by construction, and the €155 daily budget beside it is a single national estimate rather than a measurement of either city. Neither can be called the cheaper trip on this evidence.
Strong beach and weather figures point at the same narrow window. The warmest sea and the driest weeks fall in July and August in both, when Naples reaches 31°C and crowds are at their heaviest. The autumn alternative is undercut by rain, with October near 101mm in Genoa.
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. Genoa: 1991-2020 normals, Genova / Sestri (6.7 km from centre). Naples: 1991-2020 normals, Grazzanise (28.3 km from centre).
Genoa is the better bet at the height of summer, when July and August bring highs of 27-28°C, sea at 24-25°C and rain down to 12-20mm, while Naples turns noticeably hotter.
Naples suits late spring and early autumn better: May and June are already 24-28°C, drying to 29mm by early summer, and the sea holds 24°C into September. Late autumn turns wet in both, more so in Naples. Winter is the weakest stretch in both.
Getting there
| Flying from | Genoa | Naples |
|---|---|---|
| MadridMAD | 2 h 0 m €63-91 MXP · 137 km | 2 h 25 m no fares NAP · 7 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 2 h 40 m €140-309 MXP · 137 km | 2 h 5 m €167-197 1 stop NAP · 7 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 55 m no fares GOA · 7 km | 2 h 35 m €90-167 1 stop NAP · 7 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 8 h 15 m €542-635 1 stop MXP · 137 km | 9 h 0 m no fares NAP · 7 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 30 m no fares GOA · 7 km | 2 h 10 m €108-170 NAP · 7 km |
| AthensATH | 2 h 25 m €91-99 MXP · 137 km | 1 h 45 m €107-164 1 stop NAP · 7 km |
| LisbonLIS | 2 h 35 m €78-142 MXP · 137 km | 3 h 0 m €187-245 1 stop NAP · 7 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 1 h 15 m €67-76 LIN · 119 km | 2 h 0 m €132-252 1 stop NAP · 7 km |
| ViennaVIE | 1 h 25 m €65-131 MXP · 137 km | 1 h 40 m €125-207 1 stop NAP · 7 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 6 h 10 m €375-563 MXP · 137 km | 5 h 35 m no fares NAP · 7 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 | Genoa | Naples |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | 20 m | 17 m |
| Main airport | Genoa Cristoforo Colombo Airport (GOA)7 km from centre23 non-stop destinations | Naples International Airport (NAP)7 km from centre131 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Genoa | Naples |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 558,745 | 913,462 |
| People per km² | 2,325 | 7,676 |
| Museums within 10 km | 51 | 65 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 1 | 5 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 41 | 31 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 4 months | 5 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Genoa or Naples somewhere new.