VacationSelector

Milan or Venice?

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

Your match

Milan
✓ Best match
63
match

Wins on nature & day trips and nightlife with your weighting.

Venice
57
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 and the evenings matter most, and if you want park space and open country within reach; 30% of the land around the city is protected.

Choose Venice if you want a compact centre where the notable places are within walking distance, plus a summer beach trip: 20 beaches nearby and sea at 26°C in August.

Scoreboard

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

MilanVenice
Beaches & swimming. Venice leads by 69 points.69
MilanVenice
Score069
Swim season months04
Beaches 10 km420
Coast distance120 km4 km
Water distance—4 km
Places to eat. Milan leads by 25 points.25
MilanVenice
Score7045
Restaurants within 2 km of centre1,991750
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km2010
Museums & heritage. Milan leads by 2 points.2
MilanVenice
Score7472
Museums within 10 km8757
Museums within 2 km of centre5545
Share of museums within 2 km %6379
Unesco sites within 50 km45
Nightlife. Milan leads by 40 points.40
MilanVenice
Score7535
Drinking venues within 4 km2,215342
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre961306
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %4389
Nightclubs within 4 km703
Nature & day trips. Milan leads by 48 points.48
MilanVenice
Score6517
Protected land share 50 km %304
Landscape blanket share 50 km %110
Land share of disc %10070
Park area within 2 km102 hectares15 hectares
Good for families. Milan leads by 20 points.20
MilanVenice
Score7757
Tourist attractions within 2 km7672
Park area within 2 km102 hectares15 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km53
Sights concentration. Venice leads by 9 points.9
MilanVenice
Score7483
Notable places within 2 km266464
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Milan and Venice are level on 68.
MilanVenice
Score6868
Price level global64.964.9
Daily budget€155€155
Year-round weather. Venice leads by 2 points.2
MilanVenice
Score6466
Monthly daytime high7 °C to 28.6 °C8 °C to 30.4 °C
Monthly rainfall44 mm to 127 mm36 mm to 106 mm
Dry months02
0255075100

Where they differ

Milan has about three times as many restaurants near the centre and a wider range of kitchens, plus many times as many bars and clubs. It is also the better base for days out: 30% of the land around it is protected against 4% around Venice, with far more park space near the centre.

Venice puts about twice as many notable places within walking distance, and has 20 beaches nearby against Milan's 4, with sea at 21°C or more for four months.

Where they are alike

Both run through much the same year: January highs of 7-8°C and summers at 29-30°C, so the seasonal calendar is close to identical in either.

Heritage is the other common ground. Milan has about twice as many museums, while Venice counts 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Milan's 4, and both put a good share of their notable places within walking distance of the centre.

Which traveller are you?

Someone travelling for the eating and the evenings should take Milan: about three times as many restaurants near the centre, a wider spread of kitchens, and many times as many bars and clubs.

Families are better served in Milan too, with far more park space near the centre and 5 theme parks within reach against Venice's 3, though Venice adds beaches for a summer trip.

A traveller who wants heritage on foot should take Venice: about twice as many notable places within walking distance of the centre, and 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Milan's 4.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value figures are a national price level and are identical for the two cities by construction, so that comparison tells you nothing about which is dearer; the €155 daily budget beside it is one national estimate rather than a measurement of Milan or Venice.

Venice's sea is warmest in August, the same month the city is hottest at 30°C and busiest, and its beaches sit away from the historic centre. Warm months are not dry months either: September is the wettest month of the year in Milan, at 116mm, and near the wettest in Venice.

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
Venice
8
10
15
19
24
28
30
30
25
19
13
8
Sea temperature, °C
Milan
No coastline within reach
Venice
10
9
10
14
18
23
25
26
23
19
16
13
Rainfall, mm
Milan
54
44
50
78
102
75
57
83
116
113
127
49
Venice
38
36
54
78
91
75
65
74
106
89
95
60
Daylight, hours per day
Milan
9
10
12
14
15
16
15
14
13
11
10
9
Venice
9
10
12
14
15
16
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Milan
3
4
5
6
7
7
9
8
5
4
2
2
Venice
3
4
5
6
7
8
10
9
6
4
3
3

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Milan: 1991-2020 normals, Novara / Cameri (41.2 km from centre). Venice: 1991-2020 normals, Treviso / S. Angelo (26.1 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Milan is at its best from June to August, with highs of 26-29°C and July the driest of those months at 57mm. May and September are warm but wet, at 102mm and 116mm, and November is wetter still.

Venice holds a longer season: 24°C in May, 30°C through July and August with sea at 25-26°C, and 25°C in September. Winter is cold but drier, close to 36-38mm in January and February.

Getting there

Flying fromMilanVenice
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 45 m
€48-103
MXP · 40 km
2 h 0 m
€46-119
1 stop
VCE · 7 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 20 m
€46-63
MXP · 40 km
1 h 40 m
€68-109
VCE · 7 km
BarcelonaBCN
1 h 30 m
€34-53
MXP · 40 km
1 h 45 m
€41-56
VCE · 7 km
MadridMAD
2 h 0 m
€63-91
MXP · 40 km
2 h 20 m
€102-159
VCE · 7 km
CataniaCTA
1 h 55 m
€36-88
MXP · 40 km
1 h 45 m
no fares
VCE · 7 km
RomeFCO, CIA
1 h 15 m
€116-135
LIN · 7 km
1 h 10 m
€81-119
VCE · 7 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
8 h 15 m
€542-635
1 stop
MXP · 40 km
8 h 30 m
€637-650
VCE · 7 km
DubaiDXB, DWC
6 h 10 m
€375-563
MXP · 40 km
5 h 55 m
€366-421
2 stops
VCE · 7 km
BeijingPEK, PKX
10 h 10 m
€710-815
1 stop
MXP · 40 km
9 h 55 m
no fares
VCE · 7 km
CancunCUN
11 h 0 m
no fares
MXP · 40 km
11 h 10 m
no fares
VRN · 113 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

MeasureMilanVenice
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 m2 m
Main airportMilan Malpensa International Airport (MXP)40 km from centre203 non-stop destinationsVenice Marco Polo Airport (VCE)7 km from centre98 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureMilanVenice
City population1,354,196250,369
People per km²7,453602
Museums within 10 km8752
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km45
Distinct cuisines in the centre7946
Swim season, months above 21 °C–4 months

Where else could you go?

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