VacationSelector

La Spezia or Zadar?

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

Your match

La Spezia
43
match

Wins on museums & heritage and places to eat with your weighting.

Zadar
✓ Best match
47
match

Wins on sights concentration and value for money 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 museums and a wider choice of places to eat matter, and if you want high summer, when its wettest weather is well behind and daytime highs reach 30°C.

Choose Zadar if you want the notable sights close together on foot, more attractions for children, and a larger spread of beaches, with September staying warm and drier than in La Spezia.

Scoreboard

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

La SpeziaZadar
Beaches & swimming. La Spezia and Zadar are level on 73.
La SpeziaZadar
Score7373
Swim season months44
Beaches 10 km3249
Coast distance0 km0 km
Water distance0 km0 km
Places to eat. La Spezia leads by 6 points.6
La SpeziaZadar
Score3125
Restaurants within 2 km of centre235143
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km1111
Museums & heritage. La Spezia leads by 9 points.9
La SpeziaZadar
Score4233
Museums within 10 km158
Museums within 2 km of centre108
Share of museums within 2 km %67100
Unesco sites within 50 km22
Nightlife. Zadar leads by 1 points.1
La SpeziaZadar
Score2425
Drinking venues within 4 km208194
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre176139
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %8572
Nightclubs within 4 km14
Nature & day trips. Zadar leads by 3 points.3
La SpeziaZadar
Score5255
Protected land share 50 km %1312
Landscape blanket share 50 km %00
Land share of disc %5147
Park area within 2 km23 hectares30 hectares
Good for families. Zadar leads by 11 points.11
La SpeziaZadar
Score2031
Tourist attractions within 2 km39
Park area within 2 km23 hectares30 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km21
Sights concentration. Zadar leads by 24 points.24
La SpeziaZadar
Score731
Notable places within 2 km623
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Zadar leads by 12 points.12
La SpeziaZadar
Score6880
Price level global64.948.5
Daily budget€155€138
Year-round weather. La Spezia leads by 1 points.1
La SpeziaZadar
Score7069
Monthly daytime high11.4 °C to 30.3 °C10.4 °C to 31 °C
Monthly rainfall32 mm to 132 mm25 mm to 117 mm
Dry months22
0255075100

Where they differ

La Spezia has about twice as many museums as Zadar and a similar edge in restaurants near the centre. Both have UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, and La Spezia has 2 theme parks against Zadar's 1.

Zadar packs far more notable places into walking distance of its centre, so a short stay works on foot, and it has about three times as many tourist attractions near the centre and 49 beaches nearby against 32. National price levels are €138 a day in Croatia and €155 in Italy.

Where they are alike

The sea is 0km from both centres and each has 4 months with sea at 21°C or more, so the swimming window is the same length in each.

Daytime highs follow much the same curve across the year, and both get 2 months of 40mm rain or less. Nightlife is modest in each, with a similar count of places to drink, most near the centre, though Zadar has more nightclubs. Roughly the same share of the surrounding land is protected.

Which traveller are you?

Families lean to Zadar: about three times as many tourist attractions near the centre, more park space and 49 beaches nearby. La Spezia counters with 2 theme parks within reach against Zadar's 1.

A traveller who plans days around museums and long meals is better served in La Spezia, which has about twice as many museums and clearly more restaurants near the centre; both put UNESCO-listed sites within day-trip reach.

For a short break spent mostly on foot, Zadar puts far more notable places inside a walkable centre. Swimmers can choose either, since the sea is 0km from both centres and the season is the same length.

What the numbers don't tell you

The daily budget figures, €155 and €138, are national price levels for restaurants and hotels in Italy and Croatia, not measurements of La Spezia or Zadar. A coastal town in high season can sit well above its country's average, by more than the gap between them, so neither city is shown here to be the cheaper trip.

No weather station near Zadar records sunshine hours, so that figure is missing rather than low, and the monthly picture there rests on temperature, rainfall and sea temperature alone. Beach counts say nothing about crowding: both have only 4 months of sea at 21°C or more, so the beaches fill in the same short window.

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
La Spezia
11
13
16
18
23
27
30
30
26
21
16
12
Zadar
10
11
15
19
23
28
31
31
26
21
16
12
Sea temperature, °C
La Spezia
14
13
14
15
18
22
24
25
23
20
18
16
Zadar
14
13
13
14
18
22
24
25
23
20
18
16
Rainfall, mm
La Spezia
68
58
59
65
63
41
32
35
102
125
132
95
Zadar
73
64
59
62
58
49
25
32
82
80
117
99
Daylight, hours per day
La Spezia
9
10
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Zadar
9
10
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
La Spezia
4
4
6
6
8
9
11
10
7
5
4
3
Zadar
No sunshine record

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). Zadar: 1999-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Zadar / Zemunik (9.9 km from centre).

WorseBetter

La Spezia suits high summer, with highs of 27-30°C from June to August, sea up to 25°C and its driest month at 32mm. From September the rain builds, reaching 125mm in October, which makes a beach trip less dependable.

Zadar works over a longer season. May and September both stay warm, at 23°C or more, and September is markedly drier there than in La Spezia. July is its hottest and driest month.

Getting there

Flying fromLa SpeziaZadar
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
2 h 5 m
€48-62
PSA · 65 km
2 h 20 m
no fares
ZAD · 10 km
RomeFCO, CIA
1 h 10 m
no fares
GOA · 86 km
1 h 5 m
€294
SPU · 107 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 40 m
no fares
PSA · 65 km
2 h 5 m
€169-225
SPU · 107 km
AmsterdamAMS
1 h 55 m
€210-262
1 stop
PSA · 65 km
2 h 10 m
€186-201
1 stop
SPU · 107 km
ManchesterMAN
2 h 20 m
no fares
PSA · 65 km
2 h 45 m
no fares
SPU · 107 km
StockholmARN, BMA, NYO, VST
2 h 50 m
€120-185
1 stop
PSA · 65 km
2 h 45 m
€123-165
1 stop
SPU · 107 km
DublinDUB
2 h 35 m
no fares
PSA · 65 km
3 h 0 m
no fares
SPU · 107 km
BrusselsBRU, CRL
1 h 45 m
no fares
PSA · 65 km
2 h 0 m
no fares
ZAD · 10 km
MunichMUC
1 h 15 m
€207-240
1 stop
GOA · 86 km
1 h 25 m
no fares
SPU · 107 km
BerlinBER
1 h 50 m
€119-200
1 stop
PSA · 65 km
1 h 45 m
€156-284
ZAD · 10 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

MeasureLa SpeziaZadar
Official languageItalianCroatian
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCFL230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation3 m5 m
Main airportPisa International Airport (PSA)65 km from centre81 non-stop destinationsZadar Airport (ZAD)10 km from centre67 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureLa SpeziaZadar
City population92,11970,779
People per km²1,792–
Museums within 10 km121
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km22
Distinct cuisines in the centre2217
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 months4 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow La Spezia or Zadar 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.