VacationSelector

Marseille or Toulouse?

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 nature & day trips with your weighting.

Toulouse
48
match

Wins on good for families and museums & heritage 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 matters: 64 beaches within reach, water warm enough to swim in late summer, more sunshine across the year, and denser walkable sightseeing.

Choose Toulouse if you are travelling with children or want a greener city day: far more attractions and park space near the centre, and summers that top out near 29°C rather than climbing higher.

Scoreboard

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

MarseilleToulouse
Beaches & swimming. Marseille leads by 67 points.67
MarseilleToulouse
Score670
Swim season months20
Beaches 10 km641
Coast distance0 km145 km
Water distance0 km—
Places to eat. Marseille leads by 5 points.5
MarseilleToulouse
Score7570
Restaurants within 2 km of centre1,320962
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km3937
Museums & heritage. Toulouse leads by 1 points.1
MarseilleToulouse
Score5051
Museums within 10 km3327
Museums within 2 km of centre2318
Share of museums within 2 km %7067
Unesco sites within 50 km12
Nightlife. Marseille leads by 5 points.5
MarseilleToulouse
Score4843
Drinking venues within 4 km544389
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre454343
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %8388
Nightclubs within 4 km3036
Nature & day trips. Marseille leads by 16 points.16
MarseilleToulouse
Score3721
Protected land share 50 km %151
Landscape blanket share 50 km %130
Land share of disc %56100
Park area within 2 km25 hectares43 hectares
Good for families. Toulouse leads by 22 points.22
MarseilleToulouse
Score4466
Tourist attractions within 2 km1780
Park area within 2 km25 hectares43 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km42
Sights concentration. Marseille leads by 7 points.7
MarseilleToulouse
Score5851
Notable places within 2 km11172
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Marseille and Toulouse are level on 62.
MarseilleToulouse
Score6262
Price level global73.773.7
Daily budget€160€160
Year-round weather. Marseille leads by 4 points.4
MarseilleToulouse
Score7571
Monthly daytime high11.8 °C to 30.7 °C9.7 °C to 28.5 °C
Monthly rainfall11 mm to 82 mm37 mm to 74 mm
Dry months61
0255075100

Where they differ

Marseille has 64 beaches nearby where Toulouse has 1, with the sea at 21°C or more in late summer. Around it, 15% of the land is protected against 1%, and about twice as many notable places sit within walking distance of the centre, so more of the sightseeing is done on foot.

Toulouse is the stronger city for families: many times as many tourist attractions near the centre and about twice as much park space. It also has 2 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Marseille's 1, though Marseille has more theme parks.

Where they are alike

Museums and heritage land in much the same place. Marseille has somewhat more museums, while Toulouse has 2 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Marseille's 1, so neither settles the choice on that alone.

Weather, eating and nights out are close as well: highs of 12-31°C in Marseille against 10-29°C in Toulouse, a similar range of kitchens in both, and drinking and clubbing concentrated near the centre in each, Marseille with more bars, Toulouse with more clubs.

Which traveller are you?

Anyone whose trip is built around swimming should take Marseille: 64 beaches nearby against Toulouse's single one, sea reaching 22°C in late summer, and more sunshine hours across the year.

Families are better served in Toulouse, with many times as many tourist attractions near the centre and roughly twice the park space, though Marseille has more theme parks within day-trip reach.

For eating out and walking between sights, Marseille has more restaurants near the centre, more places to drink, and about twice as many notable places within walking distance. Toulouse has the edge on nightclubs.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value comparison between these two carries no information: 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.

Marseille's beach advantage is narrow in time: the sea reaches 21-22°C across only two late-summer months, and those are the warmest, busiest weeks. Its wettest months follow straight after, so a September trip can look like summer on the temperature line and not on the rainfall one.

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
Toulouse
10
11
15
18
21
26
28
29
25
20
14
10
Sea temperature, °C
Marseille
13
13
13
14
16
19
21
22
21
19
17
15
Toulouse
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Marseille
47
30
29
51
38
28
11
26
82
72
76
41
Toulouse
53
37
45
65
74
64
40
45
46
54
55
49
Daylight, hours per day
Marseille
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Toulouse
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Marseille
5
6
8
8
10
11
12
11
9
6
5
4
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. Marseille: 1991-2020 normals, Marseille / Marignane (20.6 km from centre). Toulouse: 1991-2020 normals, Toulouse / Blagnac (7 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Marseille is at its best from June to September. July is its driest month at 11mm, with highs of 31°C, and the sea stays swimmable into early autumn. The trade-off comes after that: autumn brings 72-82mm a month, the wettest stretch of its year.

Toulouse spreads its rain more evenly and never gets as hot. Its clearest run is July to September, when rainfall drops to 40-46mm; late spring is its wettest period, and its winters run cooler than Marseille's.

Getting there

Flying fromMarseilleToulouse
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 25 m
€110-119
MRS · 21 km
1 h 25 m
€77-94
TLS · 7 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 50 m
€65-134
1 stop
MRS · 21 km
1 h 40 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
BrusselsBRU, CRL
1 h 40 m
€86-123
1 stop
MRS · 21 km
1 h 40 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
NantesNTE
1 h 30 m
€72-162
MRS · 21 km
1 h 10 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
MadridMAD
1 h 35 m
no fares
MRS · 21 km
1 h 20 m
€120-143
TLS · 7 km
AmsterdamAMS
1 h 50 m
no fares
MRS · 21 km
1 h 50 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
1 h 35 m
no fares
MRS · 21 km
1 h 45 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
MunichMUC
1 h 35 m
no fares
MRS · 21 km
1 h 50 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
MarrakechRAK
2 h 45 m
no fares
MRS · 21 km
2 h 30 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
MontrealYUL, YHU, YMX
7 h 45 m
no fares
MRS · 21 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

MeasureMarseilleToulouse
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 m115 m
Main airportMarseille Provence Airport (MRS)21 km from centre125 non-stop destinationsToulouse-Blagnac Airport (TLS)7 km from centre80 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureMarseilleToulouse
City population886,040514,819
People per km²3,6834,352
Museums within 10 km2724
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km12
Distinct cuisines in the centre93101
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 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. 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.