VacationSelector

Marseille or Strasbourg?

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

Your match

Marseille
✓ Best match
57
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and nightlife with your weighting.

Strasbourg
47
match

Wins on nature & day trips 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 Marseille if the sea is the point: 64 beaches within reach, water warm enough to swim in late summer, a warmer year overall and more choice for eating out and going out.

Choose Strasbourg if you would rather walk and be outdoors: much more protected land around the city, far more park space near the centre, and the same walkable density of notable places.

Scoreboard

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

MarseilleStrasbourg
Beaches & swimming. Marseille leads by 67 points.67
MarseilleStrasbourg
Score670
Swim season months20
Beaches 10 km649
Coast distance0 km398 km
Water distance0 km—
Places to eat. Marseille leads by 8 points.8
MarseilleStrasbourg
Score7567
Restaurants within 2 km of centre1,320780
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km3936
Museums & heritage. Marseille leads by 9 points.9
MarseilleStrasbourg
Score5041
Museums within 10 km3323
Museums within 2 km of centre2314
Share of museums within 2 km %7061
Unesco sites within 50 km11
Nightlife. Marseille leads by 12 points.12
MarseilleStrasbourg
Score4836
Drinking venues within 4 km544305
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre454264
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %8387
Nightclubs within 4 km3017
Nature & day trips. Strasbourg leads by 17 points.17
MarseilleStrasbourg
Score3754
Protected land share 50 km %1537
Landscape blanket share 50 km %1335
Land share of disc %56100
Park area within 2 km25 hectares71 hectares
Good for families. Marseille leads by 6 points.6
MarseilleStrasbourg
Score4438
Tourist attractions within 2 km179
Park area within 2 km25 hectares71 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km41
Sights concentration. Marseille and Strasbourg are level on 58.
MarseilleStrasbourg
Score5858
Notable places within 2 km111109
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Marseille and Strasbourg are level on 62.
MarseilleStrasbourg
Score6262
Price level global73.773.7
Daily budget€160€160
Year-round weather. Marseille leads by 12 points.12
MarseilleStrasbourg
Score7563
Monthly daytime high11.8 °C to 30.7 °C5.2 °C to 26.4 °C
Monthly rainfall11 mm to 82 mm34 mm to 77 mm
Dry months63
0255075100

Where they differ

Marseille has 64 beaches nearby against Strasbourg's 9, and a sea that reaches 21°C or more in late summer, which Strasbourg cannot match. It runs warmer all year, 12-31°C against 5-26°C, with twice as many months at 40mm of rain or less, and roughly twice as many bars and nightclubs.

Strasbourg is the greener option: 37% of the land around it is protected against 15% around Marseille, and it has far more park space near the centre, which makes it the better base for days outdoors.

Where they are alike

The two are closest on how much sits within walking distance of the centre: in each, a similar number of notable places sits in a compact core, so both work as cities you cover on foot rather than by transport.

Eating out is comparable in range, if not in number of restaurants, and both put most of their bars near the centre. On heritage, each has 1 UNESCO-listed place within day-trip reach, and neither is geared towards children.

Which traveller are you?

A summer traveller who wants to swim should take Marseille: 64 beaches nearby, a sea at 21-22°C in late summer, and warmer daytime highs than Strasbourg manages at any point in its year.

Anyone planning days outdoors, walking or cycling is better served by Strasbourg, where 37% of the surrounding land is protected and there is far more park space near the centre than in Marseille.

For eating out and late nights, Marseille has roughly twice the restaurants and twice the bars and clubs near the centre, though the range of kitchens is much the same in both.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value figure is a national price level, identical for both cities by construction, so it tells you nothing about which is cheaper. The €160 daily budget beside it is one national estimate, not a measurement of either place. Judge cost on your own accommodation and travel.

Marseille's beach strength rests on a short season: the sea only reaches 21°C or more at the very end of summer, and the dry summer is followed by 82mm in September, when many visitors assume the warmth holds. Strasbourg's best months for warmth are also its wettest, so summer there is no promise of dry days.

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
Marseille
12
13
16
19
24
28
31
30
26
21
16
12
Strasbourg
5
7
12
17
21
24
26
26
22
16
9
6
Sea temperature, °C
Marseille
13
13
13
14
16
19
21
22
21
19
17
15
Strasbourg
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Marseille
47
30
29
51
38
28
11
26
82
72
76
41
Strasbourg
35
34
39
42
77
68
72
61
55
59
47
45
Daylight, hours per day
Marseille
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Strasbourg
9
10
12
14
15
16
16
14
13
11
9
8
Sunshine, hours per day
Marseille
5
6
8
8
10
11
12
11
9
6
5
4
Strasbourg
2
3
5
6
7
7
8
7
6
3
2
1

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Marseille: 1991-2020 normals, Marseille / Marignane (20.6 km from centre). Strasbourg: 1991-2020 normals, Strasbourg (9.1 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Marseille is the stronger choice from May to September, with highs of 24-31°C and a sea reaching 21-22°C in late summer. July is its driest month, at 11mm, while autumn brings 72-82mm.

Strasbourg peaks from June to August at 24-26°C, but that is also when it rains most, at 61-72mm a month. Its shoulder months are drier but noticeably cooler than Marseille's, and winter highs of 5-6°C make it a poor off-season bet.

Getting there

Flying fromMarseilleStrasbourg
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 25 m
€110-119
MRS · 21 km
1 h 15 m
no fares
STR · 109 km
PalmaPMI
1 h 15 m
no fares
MRS · 21 km
2 h 0 m
no fares
FKB · 33 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 50 m
€65-134
1 stop
MRS · 21 km
1 h 25 m
no fares
SXB · 10 km
BordeauxBOD
1 h 15 m
no fares
MRS · 21 km
1 h 35 m
no fares
SXB · 10 km
NantesNTE
1 h 30 m
€72-162
MRS · 21 km
1 h 30 m
no fares
SXB · 10 km
TunisTUN
1 h 40 m
no fares
MRS · 21 km
2 h 15 m
no fares
SXB · 10 km
AlgiersALG
1 h 35 m
€100-103
MRS · 21 km
2 h 15 m
no fares
SXB · 10 km
BastiaBIA
1 h 5 m
no fares
MRS · 21 km
1 h 30 m
no fares
SXB · 10 km
MontrealYUL, YHU, YMX
7 h 45 m
no fares
MRS · 21 km
7 h 45 m
no fares
ZRH · 137 km
SeoulICN, GMP
11 h 35 m
no fares
MRS · 21 km
10 h 55 m
no fares
ZRH · 137 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

MeasureMarseilleStrasbourg
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
Elevation0 m132 m
Main airportMarseille Provence Airport (MRS)21 km from centre125 non-stop destinationsStrasbourg Airport (SXB)10 km from centre42 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureMarseilleStrasbourg
City population886,040293,771
People per km²3,6833,752
Museums within 10 km2721
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Distinct cuisines in the centre9387
Swim season, months above 21 °C2 months–

Where else could you go?

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