VacationSelector

Lyon or Toulouse?

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

Your match

Lyon
✓ Best match
52
match

Wins on nightlife and nature & day trips with your weighting.

Toulouse
48
match

Wins on good for families and year-round weather 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 Lyon if the trip is built around eating out and evenings: more restaurants near the centre, more places to drink, and more green space and protected land within reach for days out.

Choose Toulouse if you want warmer, drier summers and a compact centre with more attractions for children, plus usable shoulder months either side of summer.

Scoreboard

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

LyonToulouse
Beaches & swimming. Lyon and Toulouse are level on 0.
LyonToulouse
Score00
Swim season months00
Beaches 10 km261
Coast distance253 km145 km
Water distance——
Places to eat. Lyon leads by 9 points.9
LyonToulouse
Score7970
Restaurants within 2 km of centre1,691962
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km4037
Museums & heritage. Lyon leads by 4 points.4
LyonToulouse
Score5551
Museums within 10 km5327
Museums within 2 km of centre2518
Share of museums within 2 km %4767
Unesco sites within 50 km22
Nightlife. Lyon leads by 15 points.15
LyonToulouse
Score5843
Drinking venues within 4 km866389
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre611343
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %7188
Nightclubs within 4 km4736
Nature & day trips. Lyon leads by 12 points.12
LyonToulouse
Score3321
Protected land share 50 km %61
Landscape blanket share 50 km %60
Land share of disc %100100
Park area within 2 km120 hectares43 hectares
Good for families. Toulouse leads by 7 points.7
LyonToulouse
Score5966
Tourist attractions within 2 km2580
Park area within 2 km120 hectares43 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km22
Sights concentration. Lyon leads by 3 points.3
LyonToulouse
Score5451
Notable places within 2 km8672
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Lyon and Toulouse are level on 62.
LyonToulouse
Score6262
Price level global73.773.7
Daily budget€160€160
Year-round weather. Toulouse leads by 7 points.7
LyonToulouse
Score6471
Monthly daytime high7 °C to 28 °C9.7 °C to 28.5 °C
Monthly rainfall43 mm to 101 mm37 mm to 74 mm
Dry months01
0255075100

Where they differ

Lyon has about twice as many restaurants near the centre as Toulouse, and about twice as many places to drink, along with somewhat more nightclubs; in both, most sit near the centre. It also has the better hinterland: 6% of the surrounding land is protected against 1% around Toulouse, and about three times as much park space close in.

Toulouse counters with about three times as many tourist attractions near the centre, and runs warmer, 10-29°C across the year against Lyon's 7-28°C.

Where they are alike

Neither is a place to swim. Lyon has 26 beaches within reach and Toulouse 1, but neither has a month with sea at 21°C or more, so swimming is not part of either trip.

Both keep their sightseeing tight: the notable places are within walking distance of the centre in each, Lyon with somewhat more of them, and both have 2 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach. Toulouse's museums cluster more closely, Lyon simply has more of them.

Which traveller are you?

Anyone travelling to eat and stay out late should pick Lyon: roughly twice the restaurants near the centre and twice the places to drink, with somewhat more nightclubs, most of them walkable from the middle.

Families lean to Toulouse, with about three times as many tourist attractions close to the centre and milder winters. Both have 2 theme parks within reach, so that part of the decision is a wash.

Anyone wanting days out of the city should take Lyon: 6% of the land around it is protected against 1% around Toulouse, and there is far more park space inside the city itself.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value comparison here carries no information: the figure behind it is a national price level, identical for both by construction, and the €160 a day beside it is one national estimate rather than a measurement of either city. Neither is the cheaper trip on this evidence.

Warm months are not the same as comfortable ones. July and August peak at 28-29°C in both, and Lyon's mild October, still 18°C, takes 101mm of rain. A month that looks like the best time to go can rest on heat some travellers find heavy, or on temperature alone while the rain sits underneath it.

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
Lyon
7
9
14
17
21
26
28
28
23
18
11
8
Toulouse
10
11
15
18
21
26
28
29
25
20
14
10
Rainfall, mm
Lyon
51
43
50
68
82
73
66
68
84
101
88
54
Toulouse
53
37
45
65
74
64
40
45
46
54
55
49
Daylight, hours per day
Lyon
9
10
12
14
15
16
15
14
13
11
10
9
Toulouse
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Lyon
2
3
6
6
7
9
9
8
6
4
3
2
Toulouse
3
4
6
6
7
8
8
8
7
5
3
3

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Lyon: 1991-2020 normals, Lyon / Bron (10.6 km from centre). Toulouse: 1991-2020 normals, Toulouse / Blagnac (7 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Lyon is at its best from June to August, when highs run 26-28°C and rain eases to 66-73mm. September brings 84mm and October 101mm, which closes the season quickly.

Toulouse holds up longer. July and August reach 28-29°C on 40-45mm of rain, and September stays at 25°C with 46mm, against Lyon's much wetter month. Winter is milder too, 10°C in January against Lyon's 7°C, so a cool-season city break works better there.

Getting there

Flying fromLyonToulouse
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 10 m
no fares
LYS · 20 km
1 h 25 m
€77-94
TLS · 7 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 35 m
no fares
LYS · 20 km
1 h 40 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
3 h 0 m
€167-217
LYS · 20 km
3 h 20 m
€312-356
1 stop
TLS · 7 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
1 h 20 m
€195-211
2 stops
LYS · 20 km
1 h 45 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
NantesNTE
1 h 20 m
no fares
LYS · 20 km
1 h 10 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
AmsterdamAMS
1 h 30 m
no fares
LYS · 20 km
1 h 50 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
LisbonLIS
2 h 20 m
€109-165
LYS · 20 km
1 h 55 m
€109-157
TLS · 7 km
MadridMAD
1 h 45 m
no fares
LYS · 20 km
1 h 20 m
€120-143
TLS · 7 km
MarrakechRAK
2 h 55 m
€105-126
LYS · 20 km
2 h 30 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
MontrealYUL, YHU, YMX
7 h 35 m
€446-565
1 stop
LYS · 20 km
7 h 25 m
no fares
TLS · 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 2026-08 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

MeasureLyonToulouse
Official languageFrenchFrench
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCE230 V, 50 HzCE230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation160 m115 m
Main airportLyon Saint-Exupéry Airport (LYS)20 km from centre139 non-stop destinationsToulouse-Blagnac Airport (TLS)7 km from centre80 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureLyonToulouse
City population519,127514,819
People per km²10,8384,352
Museums within 10 km4224
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km22
Distinct cuisines in the centre148101

Where else could you go?

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