VacationSelector
Place d'Armes and Notre-Dame Basilica, Montreal
MontrealPlace d'Armes and Notre-Dame Basilica
Portofino and its bay from the hillside, Portofino
PortofinoPortofino and its bay from the hillside

Photos: Montreal by Arild Vågen, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Portofino by Michal Osmenda, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Montreal or Portofino?

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 Montreal for

  • live music and the arts
  • nightlife
  • food and drink

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

Choose Portofino for

  • beaches
  • day trips
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Portofino’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. Montreal 25, Portofino 60: Portofino leads by 35 points.
Food & drink. Montreal 78, Portofino 36: Montreal leads by 42 points.
Culture & sights. Montreal 60, Portofino 22: Montreal leads by 38 points.
Nightlife. Montreal 75, Portofino 14: Montreal leads by 61 points.
Nature & outdoors. Montreal 66, Portofino 77: Portofino leads by 11 points.
Day trips. Montreal 55, Portofino 76: Portofino leads by 21 points.
Good for families. Montreal 68, Portofino 33: Montreal leads by 35 points.
Getting around. Montreal 72, Portofino 50: Montreal leads by 22 points.
Shopping & style. Montreal 60, Portofino 29: Montreal leads by 31 points.
Affordability. Montreal 45, Portofino 9: Montreal leads by 36 points.
Live music & performing arts. Montreal 76, Portofino 7: Montreal leads by 69 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Montreal 57, Portofino 42: Montreal leads by 15 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Montreal and Portofino.

Your match

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

Montreal
Best match
61match

Wins on live music and the arts and nightlife with your weighting.

Portofino
38match

Wins on beaches and day trips with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Montreal in July

27 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
98 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Portofino in July

27 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
32 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
24 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
MontrealPortofino

Where the figures come from

Portofino's temperatures are measured 31 km from the centre, at Genova / Sestri.

Portofino 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.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Montreal: 1991-2020 normals, Montreal McTavish (3.2 km from centre). Portofino: 1991-2020 normals, Genova / Sestri (31 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMontrealPortofino
Official languageFrench, EnglishItalian
CurrencyCanadian Dollar (CAD)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation31 m20 m
Main airportMontreal / Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL)16 km from centre166 non-stop destinationsGenoa Cristoforo Colombo Airport (GOA)32 km from centre25 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureMontrealPortofino
City population1,895,211355
People per km²3,806142
Museums within 10 km3714
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02
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 Montreal or Portofino 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. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm.

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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.