Lyon or Verona?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on places to eat and nightlife with your weighting.
Wins on good for families 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 Lyon if eating out is the point of the trip: far more restaurants near the centre and a wider spread of kitchens, plus more bars and clubs for evenings that run late.
Choose Verona if you're travelling with children or chasing warmth: more attractions packed into the centre, more theme parks within reach, and July highs of 30°C.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Lyon and Verona are level on 0.
| Lyon | Verona | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 26 | 2 |
| Coast distance | 253 km | 104 km |
| Water distance | — | — |
Places to eat. Lyon leads by 36 points.36
| Lyon | Verona | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 79 | 43 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 1,691 | 477 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 40 | 13 |
Museums & heritage. Verona leads by 1 points.1
| Lyon | Verona | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 55 | 56 |
| Museums within 10 km | 53 | 20 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 25 | 19 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 47 | 95 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 2 | 5 |
Nightlife. Lyon leads by 18 points.18
| Lyon | Verona | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 58 | 40 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 866 | 416 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 611 | 269 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 71 | 65 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 47 | 9 |
Nature & day trips. Verona leads by 3 points.3
| Lyon | Verona | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 33 | 36 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 6 | 9 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 6 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 120 hectares | 59 hectares |
Good for families. Verona leads by 10 points.10
| Lyon | Verona | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 59 | 69 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 25 | 62 |
| Park area within 2 km | 120 hectares | 59 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 2 | 4 |
Sights concentration. Lyon leads by 1 points.1
| Lyon | Verona | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 54 | 53 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 86 | 82 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Verona leads by 6 points.6
| Lyon | Verona | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 68 |
| Price level global | 73.7 | 64.9 |
| Daily budget | €160 | €155 |
Year-round weather. Verona leads by 1 points.1
| Lyon | Verona | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 64 | 65 |
| Monthly daytime high | 7 °C to 28 °C | 6.8 °C to 30.3 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 43 mm to 101 mm | 38 mm to 85 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 1 |
Where they differ
Lyon is the stronger food city by a wide margin, with roughly three times as many restaurants near the centre and a much wider range of kitchens. Evenings are broader too: about twice as many places to drink and many times more nightclubs, most of them central.
Verona is the easier city with children. It packs about twice as many tourist attractions into the centre, and has 4 theme parks within reach against Lyon's 2, though Lyon has about twice as much park space close in.
Where they are alike
Neither is a swimming destination. Whatever water lies near either city, neither sees a month of sea at 21°C or more, so swimming is not part of the trip.
Both put a similar number of notable places within walking distance of the centre, and both are similarly workable year-round, sitting at 7°C in January. Lyon holds more museums; Verona counters with 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Lyon's 2 and a tighter cluster around its own centre.
Which traveller are you?
A traveller who plans days around meals and stays out afterwards should take Lyon: many more restaurants near the centre, a much wider range of kitchens, twice as many places to drink and far more nightclubs.
Families are better served in Verona, with noticeably more attractions in the centre and 4 theme parks within reach against Lyon's 2. Lyon answers with more park space close in for a slower day.
Anyone here mainly for heritage can go either way. Lyon holds the larger collection of museums; Verona keeps its own tightly around the centre and has 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Lyon's 2.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €160 in Lyon's country and €155 in Verona's, are national price levels for restaurants and hotels, not measurements of either city. A single city can sit well above or below its own national average, by more than the gap between these two numbers, so neither figure tells you which trip costs more.
Beach counts are the other trap. Lyon has 26 beaches within reach, far more than Verona, yet neither city gets a month of water at 21°C or more, so these are places to sit by rather than swim in.
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). Verona: 1991-2020 normals, Verona / Villafranca (11.6 km from centre).
Lyon peaks in high summer, June to August, when highs reach 26-28°C and rain is at its lightest. Autumn turns wet, October the wettest month of its year, so a late trip risks damp days.
Verona's window is wider. May is already warm at 24°C and drier than in Lyon, and September still holds 25°C, with July and August the hottest at 30°C. Verona's winter months are drier as well, if too cold for much sitting outside.
Getting there
| Flying from | Lyon | Verona |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 35 m no fares LYS · 20 km | 1 h 55 m no fares VRN · 10 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 3 h 0 m €167-217 LYS · 20 km | 2 h 25 m €172-262 1 stop VRN · 10 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 10 m no fares LYS · 20 km | 1 h 35 m no fares VRN · 10 km |
| LisbonLIS | 2 h 20 m €109-165 LYS · 20 km | 2 h 55 m €122-127 VCE · 106 km |
| CataniaCTA | 2 h 5 m no fares GVA · 111 km | 1 h 45 m €40-90 VRN · 10 km |
| ViennaVIE | 1 h 40 m €235-253 1 stop GVA · 111 km | 1 h 10 m €65-121 VCE · 106 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 6 h 30 m no fares LYS · 20 km | 5 h 55 m €366-421 2 stops VCE · 106 km |
| PalermoPMO | 1 h 55 m no fares LYS · 20 km | 1 h 40 m no fares VRN · 10 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 8 h 0 m no fares GVA · 111 km | 8 h 30 m €637-650 VCE · 106 km |
| BeijingPEK, PKX | 10 h 20 m no fares GVA · 111 km | 9 h 55 m no fares VCE · 106 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
| Measure | Lyon | Verona |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | 59 m |
| Main airport | Lyon Saint-Exupéry Airport (LYS)20 km from centre139 non-stop destinations | Verona Villafranca Valerio Catullo Airport (VRN)10 km from centre86 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Lyon | Verona |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 519,127 | 255,588 |
| People per km² | 10,838 | 1,285 |
| Museums within 10 km | 42 | 18 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 5 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 148 | 35 |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Lyon or Verona somewhere new.