Lyon or Turin?
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 places to eat and good for families with your weighting.
Wins on museums & heritage and nightlife 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 eating is the point of the trip: more restaurants near the centre and a much wider range of kitchens, plus more park space and 2 theme parks within reach for children.
Choose Turin if museums and evenings out matter more: more museums, tightly grouped around the centre, 4 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, and about twice as many places to drink.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Lyon and Turin are level on 0.
| Lyon | Turin | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 26 | 1 |
| Coast distance | 253 km | 105 km |
| Water distance | — | — |
Places to eat. Lyon leads by 15 points.15
| Lyon | Turin | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 79 | 64 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 1,691 | 1,198 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 40 | 21 |
Museums & heritage. Turin leads by 13 points.13
| Lyon | Turin | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 55 | 68 |
| Museums within 10 km | 53 | 65 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 25 | 39 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 47 | 60 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 2 | 4 |
Nightlife. Turin leads by 8 points.8
| Lyon | Turin | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 58 | 66 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 866 | 1,375 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 611 | 768 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 71 | 56 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 47 | 57 |
Nature & day trips. Lyon and Turin are level on 33.
| Lyon | Turin | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 33 | 33 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 6 | 6 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 6 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 120 hectares | 72 hectares |
Good for families. Lyon leads by 6 points.6
| Lyon | Turin | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 59 | 53 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 25 | 36 |
| Park area within 2 km | 120 hectares | 72 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 2 | 0 |
Sights concentration. Turin leads by 1 points.1
| Lyon | Turin | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 54 | 55 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 86 | 92 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Turin leads by 6 points.6
| Lyon | Turin | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 68 |
| Price level global | 73.7 | 64.9 |
| Daily budget | €160 | €155 |
Year-round weather. Lyon and Turin are level on 64.
| Lyon | Turin | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 64 | 64 |
| Monthly daytime high | 7 °C to 28 °C | 7.1 °C to 28.5 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 43 mm to 101 mm | 44 mm to 127 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 0 |
Where they differ
Lyon is the stronger city for eating out, with somewhat more restaurants near the centre and a much wider spread of kitchens. Its drinking and club venues sit close to the centre, so a night out needs less travel.
Turin has somewhat more museums, and they sit more tightly around the centre; it also has 4 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Lyon's 2. It has about twice as many places to drink and somewhat more nightclubs, though only about half sit near the centre.
Where they are alike
Both run daytime highs of about 7-28°C across the year, and neither gets a dry month: rainfall stays above 40mm in every month. The seasons shape a trip the same way in each.
Both sit in areas where 6% of the surrounding land is protected, and each has about as many notable places within walking distance of the centre, so a day on foot works similarly. Neither is a swimming trip: no month reaches sea at 21°C.
Which traveller are you?
Anyone who plans days around meals should take Lyon: somewhat more restaurants near the centre, a much wider range of kitchens, and bars and clubs close enough to the centre to walk between after dinner.
A traveller after museums and long evenings wants Turin: more museums, grouped tightly around the centre, 4 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, and about twice as many places to drink, though half of those sit outside the middle.
Families lean to Lyon, which has about twice as much park space near the centre and 2 theme parks within reach where Turin has none; Turin offers somewhat more attractions near the centre.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €160 for France and €155 for Italy, are national price levels for restaurants and hotels rather than measurements of either city. A large city can sit far from its country's average, by more than the gap between the two, so neither figure says which trip costs more.
No weather station near Turin records sunshine hours, so that figure is missing rather than low, and its monthly ratings rest on temperature and rainfall alone. And the 26 beaches counted near Lyon are not a swimming season: no month there reaches sea at 21°C.
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. Lyon: 1991-2020 normals, Lyon / Bron (10.6 km from centre). Turin: 1991-2020 normals, Torino / Caselle (15.4 km from centre).
Lyon suits late spring and early autumn better, mainly because it is drier then: 82mm in May against Turin's 102mm, and 84mm in September against 116mm, with highs of 21°C and 23°C respectively.
Turin is at its best in July, its driest warm month at 57mm with highs of 29°C; June and August work too, though August brings 83mm. From November to February both are cold, at 7-9°C, and Turin is wettest in November at 127mm.
Getting there
| Flying from | Lyon | Turin |
|---|---|---|
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 8 h 0 m no fares GVA · 111 km | 8 h 15 m €542-635 1 stop MXP · 103 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 35 m no fares LYS · 20 km | 1 h 45 m no fares TRN · 14 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 30 m €79-99 LYS · 20 km | 1 h 15 m no fares TRN · 14 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 10 m no fares LYS · 20 km | 1 h 20 m no fares TRN · 14 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 3 h 0 m €167-217 LYS · 20 km | 2 h 45 m €171-459 1 stop TRN · 14 km |
| CataniaCTA | 2 h 5 m no fares GVA · 111 km | 1 h 55 m €41-129 TRN · 14 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 20 m €70-92 LYS · 20 km | 1 h 25 m €36-129 TRN · 14 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 1 h 20 m €195-211 2 stops LYS · 20 km | 1 h 20 m no fares TRN · 14 km |
| BeijingPEK, PKX | 10 h 20 m no fares GVA · 111 km | 10 h 10 m €710-815 1 stop MXP · 103 km |
| MarrakechRAK | 2 h 55 m €105-126 LYS · 20 km | 3 h 5 m no fares TRN · 14 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 2026-10 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 | Lyon | Turin |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | French | Italian |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CE230 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 | 160 m | 239 m |
| Main airport | Lyon Saint-Exupéry Airport (LYS)20 km from centre139 non-stop destinations | Turin Airport (TRN)14 km from centre63 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Lyon | Turin |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 519,127 | 841,600 |
| People per km² | 10,838 | 6,474 |
| Museums within 10 km | 42 | 72 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 4 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 148 | 78 |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Lyon or Turin somewhere new.