Nice or Strasbourg?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on beaches & swimming and year-round weather with your weighting.
Wins on sights concentration and good for families 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 Nice if the sea is the point: 70 beaches nearby and four months of water warm enough to swim, plus warmer weather right through the year.
Choose Strasbourg if you would rather walk one compact centre, with about twice as many notable places within walking distance and more attractions and park space for children, accepting cold winters and no swimming.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Nice leads by 73 points.73
| Nice | Strasbourg | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 73 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 4 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 70 | 9 |
| Coast distance | 1 km | 398 km |
| Water distance | 1 km | — |
Places to eat. Nice leads by 2 points.2
| Nice | Strasbourg | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 69 | 67 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 1,231 | 780 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 28 | 36 |
Museums & heritage. Nice leads by 5 points.5
| Nice | Strasbourg | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 46 | 41 |
| Museums within 10 km | 27 | 23 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 14 | 14 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 52 | 61 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 2 | 1 |
Nightlife. Nice leads by 8 points.8
| Nice | Strasbourg | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 44 | 36 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 428 | 305 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 388 | 264 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 91 | 87 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 26 | 17 |
Nature & day trips. Nice leads by 3 points.3
| Nice | Strasbourg | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 57 | 54 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 24 | 37 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 20 | 35 |
| Land share of disc % | 62 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 56 hectares | 71 hectares |
Good for families. Strasbourg leads by 8 points.8
| Nice | Strasbourg | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 30 | 38 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 4 | 9 |
| Park area within 2 km | 56 hectares | 71 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 3 | 1 |
Sights concentration. Strasbourg leads by 11 points.11
| Nice | Strasbourg | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 47 | 58 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 60 | 109 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Nice and Strasbourg are level on 62.
| Nice | Strasbourg | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 62 |
| Price level global | 73.7 | 73.7 |
| Daily budget | €160 | €160 |
Year-round weather. Nice leads by 11 points.11
| Nice | Strasbourg | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 74 | 63 |
| Monthly daytime high | 13.3 °C to 27.9 °C | 5.2 °C to 26.4 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 13 mm to 138 mm | 34 mm to 77 mm |
| Dry months | 3 | 3 |
Where they differ
Nice is the coastal option: 70 beaches nearby against 9, and four months with the sea at 21°C or more, where Strasbourg has none. It also runs warmer all year, 13-28°C against 5-26°C, and has about twice as many nightclubs.
Strasbourg is the denser city on foot, with about twice as many notable places within walking distance of the centre and about twice as many tourist attractions near it. Its museums sit tightly around the centre, and there is more park space close in.
Where they are alike
Both are good for eating out. Nice has about twice as many restaurants near the centre; Strasbourg offers a somewhat wider range of kitchens.
They are also close on nature and on heritage. Each has open country within reach, 37% of the land around Strasbourg protected and 24% around Nice, and both hold a modest stock of museums, with 2 UNESCO-listed places in day-trip reach of Nice and 1 of Strasbourg.
Which traveller are you?
Anyone whose trip is built around swimming should take Nice: 70 beaches nearby and four months of sea at 21°C or more, which Strasbourg has no equivalent of at all.
Families will find more to do in Strasbourg, which has about twice as many tourist attractions near the centre and more park space close in, though Nice counters with 3 theme parks within reach against Strasbourg's 1.
Walkers who want museums and streets in one compact area are better served by Strasbourg, where notable places sit close together. Nice has somewhat more museums overall and more bars and clubs for the evening.
What the numbers don't tell you
The value comparison between these two carries no information: the figure behind it is a national price level and is 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.
Nice's coastal advantage is narrower than it looks. The sea passes 21°C in only four months, so the beaches pay off in a short window that is also the busiest, and that window holds the driest weather. Shoulder-season visits run into autumn rain above 120mm.
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.
Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Nice: 1991-2020 normals, Nice (8 km from centre). Strasbourg: 1991-2020 normals, Strasbourg (9.1 km from centre).
Nice is at its best from June to September: highs reaching 28°C, sea at 24-25°C in high summer and little rain, 13-18mm in midsummer. The catch is autumn, with over 120mm falling in October and again in November.
Strasbourg works from May to September, warmest in midsummer at 26°C, though summer is also its wettest stretch, at 61-77mm a month. Winter is cold there, 5-7°C by day, where Nice stays milder.
Getting there
| Flying from | Nice | Strasbourg |
|---|---|---|
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 30 m €78-111 NCE · 6 km | 1 h 15 m no fares STR · 109 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 55 m €76-223 NCE · 6 km | 1 h 25 m no fares SXB · 10 km |
| PalmaPMI | 1 h 20 m no fares NCE · 6 km | 2 h 0 m no fares FKB · 33 km |
| BordeauxBOD | 1 h 25 m no fares NCE · 6 km | 1 h 35 m no fares SXB · 10 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 10 m €69-133 NCE · 6 km | 1 h 40 m no fares SXB · 10 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 15 m €83-135 NCE · 6 km | 1 h 45 m €133-212 1 stop SXB · 10 km |
| NantesNTE | 1 h 35 m €129-163 NCE · 6 km | 1 h 30 m no fares SXB · 10 km |
| ToulouseTLS | 1 h 15 m no fares NCE · 6 km | 1 h 30 m no fares SXB · 10 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 6 h 20 m €375-433 NCE · 6 km | 6 h 15 m €232-366 1 stop ZRH · 137 km |
| AtlantaATL, PDK | 9 h 40 m no fares NCE · 6 km | 9 h 30 m no fares STR · 109 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
| Measure | Nice | Strasbourg |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | French | French |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CE230 V, 50 Hz | CE230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 | 112 |
| Elevation | 0 m | 132 m |
| Main airport | Nice-Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE)6 km from centre129 non-stop destinations | Strasbourg Airport (SXB)10 km from centre42 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 11 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Nice | Strasbourg |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 357,737 | 293,771 |
| People per km² | 4,975 | 3,752 |
| Museums within 10 km | 16 | 21 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 1 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 65 | 87 |
| 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 Nice or Strasbourg somewhere new.