VacationSelector
La Major cathedral from the harbour, Marseille
MarseilleLa Major cathedral from the harbour
Palermo Cathedral, Palermo
PalermoPalermo Cathedral

Photos: Marseille by Charlotte Noblet, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Palermo by Antonino Giangrasso, Pexels License.

Marseille or Palermo?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Marseille for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • getting around
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Marseille’s own page.

Choose Palermo for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Palermo’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Marseille 72, Palermo 77: Palermo leads by 5 points.
Food & drink. Marseille 67, Palermo 81: Palermo leads by 14 points.
Culture & sights. Marseille 63, Palermo 80: Palermo leads by 17 points.
Nightlife. Marseille 57, Palermo 58: Palermo leads by 1 points.
Nature & outdoors. Marseille 83, Palermo 72: Marseille leads by 11 points.
Day trips. Marseille 86, Palermo 84: Marseille leads by 2 points.
Good for families. Marseille 50, Palermo 44: Marseille leads by 6 points.
Getting around. Marseille 57, Palermo 50: Marseille leads by 7 points.
Shopping & style. Marseille 47, Palermo 44: Marseille leads by 3 points.
Affordability. Marseille 45, Palermo 63: Palermo leads by 18 points.
Live music & performing arts. Marseille 56, Palermo 62: Palermo leads by 6 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Marseille 37, Palermo 30: Marseille leads by 7 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Marseille and Palermo.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Marseille
60match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and getting around with your weighting.

Palermo
62match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Marseille in July

31 °Cdaytime high
20 °Cnight-time low
11 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
21 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Palermo in July

29 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
2 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
26 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080100JFMAMJJASOND
MarseillePalermo

Where the figures come from

Palermo has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Palermo's sunshine is measured 67 km from the centre, at Ustica.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Marseille: 1991-2020 normals, Marseille / Marignane (20.6 km from centre). Palermo: 1991-2020 (sunshine 1961-1990) normals, Palermo / Punta Raisi (24.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMarseillePalermo
Official languageFrenchItalian
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCE230 V, 50 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation0 m14 m
Main airportMarseille Provence Airport (MRS)21 km from centre126 non-stop destinationsFalcone–Borsellino Airport (PMO)25 km from centre106 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureMarseillePalermo
City population886,040630,167
People per km²3,6833,924
Museums within 10 km2742
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °C2 months5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Marseille or Palermo somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.