Palermo or Rome?
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 good for families 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 Palermo if swimming decides the trip. The sea is 1km from the centre, there are more beaches within easy reach, and summer is drier here than in Rome.
Choose Rome if you are here for what is built: far more museums, many times more notable places within walking distance, more protected countryside for day trips, and 4 theme parks that Palermo cannot match.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Palermo leads by 34 points.34
| Palermo | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 67 | 33 |
| Swim season months | 5 | 5 |
| Beaches 10 km | 13 | 3 |
| Coast distance | 1 km | 24 km |
| Water distance | 1 km | 24 km |
Places to eat. Rome leads by 10 points.10
| Palermo | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 50 | 60 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 807 | 2,241 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 13 | 10 |
Museums & heritage. Rome leads by 34 points.34
| Palermo | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 50 | 84 |
| Museums within 10 km | 32 | 161 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 26 | 79 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 81 | 49 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 1 | 7 |
Nightlife. Rome leads by 21 points.21
| Palermo | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 53 | 74 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 799 | 2,022 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 515 | 912 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 64 | 45 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 16 | 85 |
Nature & day trips. Rome leads by 34 points.34
| Palermo | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 36 | 70 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 4 | 19 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 45 | 78 |
| Park area within 2 km | 63 hectares | 172 hectares |
Good for families. Rome leads by 45 points.45
| Palermo | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 41 | 86 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 16 | 126 |
| Park area within 2 km | 63 hectares | 172 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 0 | 4 |
Sights concentration. Rome leads by 42 points.42
| Palermo | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 57 | 99 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 104 | 1,125 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Palermo and Rome are level on 68.
| Palermo | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 68 |
| Price level global | 64.9 | 64.9 |
| Daily budget | €155 | €155 |
Year-round weather. Palermo leads by 6 points.6
| Palermo | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 77 | 71 |
| Monthly daytime high | 12.6 °C to 27.8 °C | 12 °C to 31.4 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 4 mm to 71 mm | 21 mm to 114 mm |
| Dry months | 7 | 3 |
Where they differ
Palermo puts you beside the water. The sea is 1km from the centre against 24km in Rome, and there are 13 beaches close by where Rome has 3, so a swim is a decision made at breakfast rather than a planned outing.
Rome has many times more notable places within walking distance of the centre, and many times more museums, with 7 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Palermo's 1. Families get 4 theme parks where Palermo has none, far more attractions near the centre.
Where they are alike
Weather is where they sit closest. Both are mild in winter, both are hottest in August, and both give five months with the sea at 21°C or more, so the swimming season opens and closes at much the same time in each.
Eating out is close as well: Rome has around three times as many restaurants near the centre, while Palermo covers a somewhat wider range of kitchens. Both also sit at the same national price level.
Which traveller are you?
If swimming is the reason for the trip, Palermo wins outright: the sea is 1km from the centre, with 13 beaches nearby, against a 24km run out from Rome.
Travelling with children, Rome is the stronger choice, with far more attractions near the centre, more park space, 4 theme parks within reach where Palermo has none, and more protected land for days out.
A culture-first traveller belongs in Rome, where the museums are many times more numerous and notable buildings crowd the centre. Anyone wanting bars and varied kitchens all within walking reach will find Palermo more compact.
What the numbers don't tell you
Value is the one axis where the two are identical, and that is by construction: it reflects a national price level rather than either city. The €155 daily budget sits beside it as a single national estimate, not a measurement of Palermo or Rome, so the value comparison between these two carries no information about which trip costs less.
Palermo's beach advantage is also seasonal. The sea is at 21°C or more for five months, the same months when heat peaks, 31°C in Rome. Outside that window the beaches count for less, and Palermo's museums and attractions are the thinner of the two.
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. Palermo: 1961-1990 normals, Ustica (66.8 km from centre). Rome: 1991-2020 normals, Roma / Ciampino (15.1 km from centre).
Palermo is at its best from July to September, with highs of 25-28°C, sea at 25-27°C and rain that nearly stops, 4-11mm at midsummer. Its winter is milder to walk in and markedly drier than Rome's.
Rome reads better in May and September, when highs of 24-27°C make a walking city bearable; midsummer touches 31°C. Late autumn is the catch, with 97-114mm a month, well above what Palermo gets, so out of season the sightseeing city is also the wetter one.
Getting there
| Flying from | Palermo | Rome |
|---|---|---|
| MilanMXP, BGY, LIN | 1 h 45 m €31-110 PMO · 25 km | 1 h 15 m €84-118 FCO · 23 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 2 h 25 m €101-135 PMO · 25 km | 2 h 0 m €91-122 FCO · 23 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 50 m no fares PMO · 25 km | 2 h 20 m €76-143 1 stop FCO · 23 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 50 m €49-107 PMO · 25 km | 1 h 40 m €44-74 FCO · 23 km |
| MadridMAD | 2 h 25 m €92-140 1 stop PMO · 25 km | 2 h 15 m €98-119 FCO · 23 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 2 h 15 m €183-194 PMO · 25 km | 2 h 15 m €136-291 FCO · 23 km |
| NaplesNAP | 1 h 0 m €42-84 PMO · 25 km | 55 m no fares FCO · 23 km |
| TurinTRN | 1 h 45 m €53-76 PMO · 25 km | 1 h 15 m no fares FCO · 23 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 9 h 5 m no fares PMO · 25 km | 8 h 45 m €446-597 FCO · 23 km |
| Tel Aviv YafoTLV | 3 h 10 m €151-346 1 stop PMO · 25 km | 3 h 20 m €115-179 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 2026-08 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 | Palermo | Rome |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Italian | Italian |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CFL230 V, 50 Hz | CFL230 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 | 14 m | 21 m |
| Main airport | Falcone–Borsellino Airport (PMO)25 km from centre103 non-stop destinations | Rome–Fiumicino Leonardo da Vinci International Airport (FCO)23 km from centre230 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Palermo | Rome |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 630,167 | 2,748,109 |
| People per km² | 3,924 | 2,135 |
| Museums within 10 km | 42 | 177 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 1 | 7 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 33 | 65 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 5 months | 5 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Palermo or Rome somewhere new.