La Spezia or Lyon?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on beaches & swimming and nature & day trips with your weighting.
Wins on places to eat 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 La Spezia if the trip is built around swimming and open air: 32 beaches nearby, a sea warm enough for four months, warmer days in every season and more protected country within day-trip reach.
Choose Lyon if you want to eat well, see museums and have somewhere to go after dinner, in a centre where most of what you would visit is within walking distance.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. La Spezia leads by 73 points.73
| La Spezia | Lyon | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 73 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 4 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 32 | 26 |
| Coast distance | 0 km | 253 km |
| Water distance | 0 km | — |
Places to eat. Lyon leads by 48 points.48
| La Spezia | Lyon | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 31 | 79 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 235 | 1,691 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 11 | 40 |
Museums & heritage. Lyon leads by 13 points.13
| La Spezia | Lyon | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 42 | 55 |
| Museums within 10 km | 15 | 53 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 10 | 25 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 67 | 47 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 2 | 2 |
Nightlife. Lyon leads by 34 points.34
| La Spezia | Lyon | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 24 | 58 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 208 | 866 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 176 | 611 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 85 | 71 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 1 | 47 |
Nature & day trips. La Spezia leads by 19 points.19
| La Spezia | Lyon | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 52 | 33 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 13 | 6 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 6 |
| Land share of disc % | 51 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 23 hectares | 120 hectares |
Good for families. Lyon leads by 39 points.39
| La Spezia | Lyon | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 20 | 59 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 3 | 25 |
| Park area within 2 km | 23 hectares | 120 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 2 | 2 |
Sights concentration. Lyon leads by 47 points.47
| La Spezia | Lyon | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 7 | 54 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 6 | 86 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. La Spezia leads by 6 points.6
| La Spezia | Lyon | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 62 |
| Price level global | 64.9 | 73.7 |
| Daily budget | €155 | €160 |
Year-round weather. La Spezia leads by 6 points.6
| La Spezia | Lyon | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 70 | 64 |
| Monthly daytime high | 11.4 °C to 30.3 °C | 7 °C to 28 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 32 mm to 132 mm | 43 mm to 101 mm |
| Dry months | 2 | 0 |
Where they differ
La Spezia has 32 beaches within reach against Lyon's 26, and its sea holds 21°C or more for four months where Lyon's never does. It also has more country to walk in, with 13% of the surrounding land protected against 6% around Lyon.
Lyon has many times as many restaurants near the centre and a wider range of kitchens, about three times as many museums, and many times as many notable places within walking distance of the centre, plus more bars, clubs and family attractions close in.
Where they are alike
Weather is the closest call. Both peak in high summer and are at their coolest in midwinter, and both give you a long warm stretch; La Spezia runs 11-30°C across the year, Lyon 7-28°C, so the difference is one of degree rather than kind.
Beyond that, both sit in countries with similar estimated daily budgets, €155 in Italy and €160 in France, and each has 2 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach.
Which traveller are you?
If you are travelling to swim, La Spezia settles it: 32 beaches within reach and a sea that holds 25°C in late summer, with more protected land around it for walking days between swims.
If you travel for food and evenings out, Lyon is the clearer choice, with many times as many restaurants and drinking places near the centre and a much wider range of kitchens than La Spezia offers.
Families on a short break are better served in Lyon, with far more attractions and park space near the centre and most sights walkable; both have 2 theme parks within reach, so that is not the deciding point.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €155 for Italy and €160 for France, are national price levels for restaurants and hotels, not measurements of either city. Neither is evidence that one trip costs more than the other: the gap between a visited city and its own national average can easily be wider than the gap between the two countries.
La Spezia's beach strength is concentrated: the warm sea and the driest weather arrive together in high summer, which is also when the coast is busiest, and its autumn is the wettest part of either city's year. Lyon's nearby beaches come with no month of sea swimming at all.
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. La Spezia: 1991-2020 normals, Pisa / S. Giusto (64.8 km from centre). Lyon: 1991-2020 normals, Lyon / Bron (10.6 km from centre).
La Spezia is at its best from June to September, when highs reach 30°C and the sea peaks at 25°C in late summer. Midsummer is also its driest spell, at 32-35mm a month, while autumn turns heavy, with 125-132mm in October and November.
Lyon works best in midsummer, with highs of 26-28°C and rain steady at 66-73mm. Spring is wetter, at 82mm in May, and autumn wetter still at 101mm, so its shoulder months are less reliable than La Spezia's summer.
Getting there
| Flying from | La Spezia | Lyon |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 5 m €48-62 PSA · 65 km | 1 h 35 m no fares LYS · 20 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 40 m no fares PSA · 65 km | 1 h 10 m no fares LYS · 20 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 10 m no fares GOA · 86 km | 1 h 30 m €79-99 LYS · 20 km |
| TiranaTIA | 1 h 35 m no fares PSA · 65 km | 2 h 10 m no fares LYS · 20 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 2 h 25 m €154-191 1 stop BLQ · 125 km | 3 h 0 m €167-217 LYS · 20 km |
| PalermoPMO | 1 h 25 m no fares PSA · 65 km | 1 h 55 m no fares LYS · 20 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 55 m €210-262 1 stop PSA · 65 km | 1 h 30 m no fares LYS · 20 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 1 h 30 m no fares PSA · 65 km | 1 h 20 m €195-211 2 stops LYS · 20 km |
| BrusselsBRU, CRL | 1 h 45 m no fares PSA · 65 km | 1 h 20 m no fares LYS · 20 km |
| MarrakechRAK | 3 h 10 m no fares PSA · 65 km | 2 h 55 m €105-126 LYS · 20 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 2026-09, 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 | La Spezia | Lyon |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | 3 m | 160 m |
| Main airport | Pisa International Airport (PSA)65 km from centre81 non-stop destinations | Lyon Saint-Exupéry Airport (LYS)20 km from centre139 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 11 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | La Spezia | Lyon |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 92,119 | 519,127 |
| People per km² | 1,792 | 10,838 |
| Museums within 10 km | 12 | 42 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 2 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 22 | 148 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 4 months | – |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow La Spezia or Lyon somewhere new.