VacationSelector

Milan or Rome?

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

Your match

Milan
63
match

Wins on places to eat and nightlife with your weighting.

Rome
✓ Best match
72
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and sights concentration 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 Milan if the eating matters most: a similar number of restaurants near the centre to Rome, but a much wider range of kitchens, and a museum quarter tight enough to walk between visits.

Choose Rome if the trip is about sights. It has many times as many notable places within walking distance of the centre, about twice as many museums, and warm sea within reach in summer.

Scoreboard

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

MilanRome
Beaches & swimming. Rome leads by 33 points.33
MilanRome
Score033
Swim season months05
Beaches 10 km43
Coast distance120 km24 km
Water distance—24 km
Places to eat. Milan leads by 10 points.10
MilanRome
Score7060
Restaurants within 2 km of centre1,9912,241
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km2010
Museums & heritage. Rome leads by 10 points.10
MilanRome
Score7484
Museums within 10 km87161
Museums within 2 km of centre5579
Share of museums within 2 km %6349
Unesco sites within 50 km47
Nightlife. Milan leads by 1 points.1
MilanRome
Score7574
Drinking venues within 4 km2,2152,022
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre961912
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %4345
Nightclubs within 4 km7085
Nature & day trips. Rome leads by 5 points.5
MilanRome
Score6570
Protected land share 50 km %3019
Landscape blanket share 50 km %110
Land share of disc %10078
Park area within 2 km102 hectares172 hectares
Good for families. Rome leads by 9 points.9
MilanRome
Score7786
Tourist attractions within 2 km76126
Park area within 2 km102 hectares172 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km54
Sights concentration. Rome leads by 25 points.25
MilanRome
Score7499
Notable places within 2 km2661,125
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Milan and Rome are level on 68.
MilanRome
Score6868
Price level global64.964.9
Daily budget€155€155
Year-round weather. Rome leads by 7 points.7
MilanRome
Score6471
Monthly daytime high7 °C to 28.6 °C12 °C to 31.4 °C
Monthly rainfall44 mm to 127 mm21 mm to 114 mm
Dry months03
0255075100

Where they differ

Milan's strength is at the table: about as many restaurants near the centre as Rome, but a much wider spread of kitchens. Its museums also sit tightly around the centre.

Rome is the denser city for sightseeing, with many times as many notable places within walking distance of the centre, roughly twice as many museums, and 7 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Milan's 4. Its coast also gives five months of sea warm enough to swim in, which Milan has not.

Where they are alike

Nights out look similar in each. The two have about as many places to drink, Rome a few more nightclubs, and in both about half sit near the centre, so an evening needs little travel.

Both also work for families and for getting out of town: green space and attractions in the centre of each, theme parks within reach of both, 5 near Milan and 4 near Rome, and protected countryside on both doorsteps.

Which traveller are you?

Someone who plans a trip around eating: Milan. It has about as many restaurants near the centre as Rome, but a much wider range of kitchens, so a week of dinners repeats itself less.

Anyone with a short stay and a list of museums: Rome. Roughly twice as many museums, many times as many notable places within walking distance of the centre, and 7 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach.

Families combining city days with a swim: Rome, with about twice as many attractions and as much park space near the centre, and five months of sea warm enough to use. Milan answers with 5 theme parks against Rome's 4.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value comparison between these two carries no information. Both sit on the same national price level, so neither is the cheaper trip on this evidence, and the €155 daily budget beside them is one national estimate rather than a measurement of Milan or Rome.

Rome's swimming season flatters it: the sea is at its warmest in the same weeks the city reaches 31°C and its walkable centre is fullest, and the beaches sit outside the city. Milan's countryside works the other way: 30% of the land around it is protected, but that is countryside reached by a trip out, not green space in the centre.

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
Milan
7
10
15
17
23
26
29
28
24
18
11
7
Rome
12
13
16
18
24
28
31
31
27
22
17
13
Sea temperature, °C
Milan
No coastline within reach
Rome
15
14
14
15
18
22
25
25
24
21
19
16
Rainfall, mm
Milan
54
44
50
78
102
75
57
83
116
113
127
49
Rome
67
69
57
75
62
33
21
38
70
97
114
103
Daylight, hours per day
Milan
9
10
12
14
15
16
15
14
13
11
10
9
Rome
10
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Milan
3
4
5
6
7
7
9
8
5
4
2
2
Rome
4
5
6
7
9
10
11
11
8
6
4
4

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Milan: 1991-2020 normals, Novara / Cameri (41.2 km from centre). Rome: 1991-2020 normals, Roma / Ciampino (15.1 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Milan is at its best from June to August, with highs of 26-29°C and July the driest of the three at 57mm. Autumn is the problem: September to November each bring more than 110mm of rain.

Rome has the longer season. May and June are warm at 24-28°C, July and August hot at 31°C and the driest months, and September stays warm. Winter days are mild, though November and December are its wettest.

Getting there

Flying fromMilanRome
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 20 m
€46-63
MXP · 40 km
2 h 0 m
€91-122
FCO · 23 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 45 m
€48-103
MXP · 40 km
2 h 20 m
€76-143
1 stop
FCO · 23 km
BarcelonaBCN
1 h 30 m
€34-53
MXP · 40 km
1 h 40 m
€44-74
FCO · 23 km
MadridMAD
2 h 0 m
€63-91
MXP · 40 km
2 h 15 m
€98-119
FCO · 23 km
CataniaCTA
1 h 55 m
€36-88
MXP · 40 km
1 h 20 m
€60-112
FCO · 23 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
8 h 15 m
€542-635
1 stop
MXP · 40 km
8 h 45 m
€446-597
FCO · 23 km
PalermoPMO
1 h 45 m
€27-28
MXP · 40 km
1 h 10 m
€38-50
FCO · 23 km
DubaiDXB, DWC
6 h 10 m
€375-563
MXP · 40 km
5 h 45 m
€270-340
FCO · 23 km
Sao PauloGRU, VCP, CGH, RTE
11 h 50 m
€1,114-1167
2 stops
MXP · 40 km
11 h 45 m
€893-1016
1 stop
FCO · 23 km
SeoulICN, GMP
11 h 5 m
no fares
MXP · 40 km
11 h 15 m
€630-760
FCO · 23 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 2026-09 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

MeasureMilanRome
Official languageItalianItalian
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCFL230 V, 50 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation138 m21 m
Main airportMilan Malpensa International Airport (MXP)40 km from centre203 non-stop destinationsRome–Fiumicino Leonardo da Vinci International Airport (FCO)23 km from centre230 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureMilanRome
City population1,354,1962,748,109
People per km²7,4532,135
Museums within 10 km87177
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km47
Distinct cuisines in the centre7965
Swim season, months above 21 °C–5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Milan or Rome 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. 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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 2026-09-01. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.