Genoa or Nice?
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 sights concentration and museums & heritage with your weighting.
Wins on nature & day trips and places to eat 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 museums and the notable places packed within walking distance of the centre, and a compact city where the sea starts at the centre itself.
Choose Nice if you want the wider choice of restaurants and kitchens, green space and protected country within day-trip reach, and 3 theme parks for the family.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Genoa and Nice are level on 73.
| Genoa | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 73 | 73 |
| Swim season months | 4 | 4 |
| Beaches 10 km | 37 | 70 |
| Coast distance | 0 km | 1 km |
| Water distance | 0 km | 1 km |
Places to eat. Nice leads by 19 points.19
| Genoa | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 50 | 69 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 691 | 1,231 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 14 | 28 |
Museums & heritage. Genoa leads by 9 points.9
| Genoa | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 55 | 46 |
| Museums within 10 km | 47 | 27 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 33 | 14 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 70 | 52 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 1 | 2 |
Nightlife. Genoa leads by 6 points.6
| Genoa | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 50 | 44 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 637 | 428 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 419 | 388 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 66 | 91 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 17 | 26 |
Nature & day trips. Nice leads by 22 points.22
| Genoa | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 35 | 57 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 8 | 24 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 20 |
| Land share of disc % | 61 | 62 |
| Park area within 2 km | 29 hectares | 56 hectares |
Good for families. Genoa leads by 8 points.8
| Genoa | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 38 | 30 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 21 | 4 |
| Park area within 2 km | 29 hectares | 56 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 0 | 3 |
Sights concentration. Genoa leads by 14 points.14
| Genoa | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 61 | 47 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 130 | 60 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Genoa leads by 6 points.6
| Genoa | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 62 |
| Price level global | 64.9 | 73.7 |
| Daily budget | €155 | €160 |
Year-round weather. Nice leads by 1 points.1
| Genoa | Nice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 73 | 74 |
| Monthly daytime high | 11.7 °C to 27.9 °C | 13.3 °C to 27.9 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 12 mm to 122 mm | 13 mm to 138 mm |
| Dry months | 3 | 3 |
Where they differ
Genoa fits about twice as many notable places into walking distance of its centre as Nice, and about twice as many museums, clustered tightly around the old core, along with many times as many tourist attractions near the centre.
Nice has about twice as many restaurants near the centre and a much wider range of kitchens. It is the better base for getting out, with 24% of the surrounding land protected against 8% around Genoa, twice as much park space and 3 theme parks within reach.
Where they are alike
Both are swimming cities. The sea meets Genoa's centre and lies 1km from Nice's, and each has a stretch of high summer with the sea at 21°C or more, falling in the same weeks.
Their weather runs in parallel, peaking at 28°C in August and easing to 12-13°C in January, with a similar short run of dry months. The national price levels behind the two sit close as well, close enough that cost is unlikely to decide it.
Which traveller are you?
If your days are spent on foot between museums and old streets, Genoa suits you better: roughly double the museums, packed tightly around the centre, and far more notable places reachable without transport.
If eating out shapes the trip, Nice has around twice the restaurants near the centre and a wider spread of kitchens, plus more nightclubs when the evening runs long.
Families split. Genoa has many more tourist attractions close to the centre and swimming from the city itself; Nice answers with 3 theme parks, more park space and 24% of its surrounding land protected.
What the numbers don't tell you
The €155 and €160 daily budgets are national price levels for restaurants and hotels, not measurements of Genoa or Nice. The gap between them is small, and either city can sit well away from its own country's average, so nothing here shows one to be the cheaper trip.
Both look strong on beaches, but the warm-sea months are few and they are the same months in each, so the best swimming coincides with the busiest weeks. The autumn shoulder, when the sea is still warm, is also the wettest stretch of the year in both, more so in Nice.
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). Nice: 1991-2020 normals, Nice (8 km from centre).
Genoa is the drier pick outside summer: October and November fall at 101mm and 122mm where Nice runs wetter still, and September holds 25°C with the sea at 23°C for late swimming. Spring is quieter, with May the driest of the pre-summer months.
For peak summer take Nice: July and August at 28°C, the sea at 24-25°C and only 13-18mm of rain. Winter days are a shade milder, near 13-14°C, though January is the wettest of them at 74mm.
Getting there
| Flying from | Genoa | Nice |
|---|---|---|
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 30 m no fares GOA · 7 km | 1 h 30 m €78-111 NCE · 6 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 55 m no fares GOA · 7 km | 1 h 55 m €76-223 NCE · 6 km |
| MadridMAD | 2 h 0 m €63-91 MXP · 137 km | 1 h 50 m €137-165 NCE · 6 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 8 h 15 m €542-635 1 stop MXP · 137 km | 8 h 10 m €666-799 1 stop NCE · 6 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 2 h 40 m €140-309 MXP · 137 km | 2 h 45 m €202-329 NCE · 6 km |
| LisbonLIS | 2 h 35 m €78-142 MXP · 137 km | 2 h 25 m €153-221 1 stop NCE · 6 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 6 h 10 m €375-563 MXP · 137 km | 6 h 20 m €375-433 NCE · 6 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 10 m no fares GOA · 7 km | 1 h 10 m €69-133 NCE · 6 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 1 h 15 m €67-76 LIN · 119 km | 1 h 30 m €164-246 1 stop NCE · 6 km |
| CopenhagenCPH | 2 h 0 m €93-109 MXP · 137 km | 2 h 20 m €174-218 1 stop NCE · 6 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 | Nice |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Italian | French |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CFL230 V, 50 Hz | CE230 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 | 0 m |
| Main airport | Genoa Cristoforo Colombo Airport (GOA)7 km from centre23 non-stop destinations | Nice-Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE)6 km from centre129 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 11 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Genoa | Nice |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 558,745 | 357,737 |
| People per km² | 2,325 | 4,975 |
| Museums within 10 km | 51 | 16 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 1 | 2 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 41 | 65 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 4 months | 4 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Genoa or Nice somewhere new.