Palermo or Turin?
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 museums & heritage and places to eat 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 the trip is built around swimming and warm, dry summers: 13 beaches nearby and five months of sea warm enough to swim in, which Turin cannot offer at all.
Choose Turin if you would rather spend days indoors and evenings out: about twice as many museums, 4 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, a wider range of kitchens and more bars and clubs.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Palermo leads by 67 points.67
| Palermo | Turin | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 67 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 5 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 13 | 1 |
| Coast distance | 1 km | 105 km |
| Water distance | 1 km | — |
Places to eat. Turin leads by 14 points.14
| Palermo | Turin | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 50 | 64 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 807 | 1,198 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 13 | 21 |
Museums & heritage. Turin leads by 18 points.18
| Palermo | Turin | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 50 | 68 |
| Museums within 10 km | 32 | 65 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 26 | 39 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 81 | 60 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 1 | 4 |
Nightlife. Turin leads by 13 points.13
| Palermo | Turin | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 53 | 66 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 799 | 1,375 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 515 | 768 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 64 | 56 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 16 | 57 |
Nature & day trips. Palermo leads by 3 points.3
| Palermo | Turin | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 36 | 33 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 4 | 6 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 45 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 63 hectares | 72 hectares |
Good for families. Turin leads by 12 points.12
| Palermo | Turin | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 41 | 53 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 16 | 36 |
| Park area within 2 km | 63 hectares | 72 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 0 | 0 |
Sights concentration. Palermo leads by 2 points.2
| Palermo | Turin | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 57 | 55 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 104 | 92 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Palermo and Turin are level on 68.
| Palermo | Turin | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 68 |
| Price level global | 64.9 | 64.9 |
| Daily budget | €155 | €155 |
Year-round weather. Palermo leads by 13 points.13
| Palermo | Turin | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 77 | 64 |
| Monthly daytime high | 12.6 °C to 27.8 °C | 7.1 °C to 28.5 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 4 mm to 71 mm | 44 mm to 127 mm |
| Dry months | 7 | 0 |
Where they differ
Palermo is the one with a coast: 13 beaches nearby against Turin's 1, and five months with sea at 21°C or more, peaking at 27°C in August.
Turin has about twice as many museums and 4 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Palermo's 1. It has somewhat more restaurants near the centre and a much wider range of kitchens, plus about twice as many bars and three times as many clubs, though Palermo's sit closer to the centre.
Where they are alike
The two are level on how much sits within walking distance of the centre: both offer a similar number of notable places in a walkable core, so neither needs much transport for a first visit.
They are also close on day trips and green space. Protected land is limited around both, 6% near Turin and 4% near Palermo, and each has about the same park space near the centre; neither has a theme park within reach.
Which traveller are you?
Swimmers and sun-seekers belong in Palermo: 13 beaches nearby, sea at 21°C or more for five months and a dry summer that keeps July rain near 4mm, making a water-based trip straightforward.
Museum-goers and people who plan trips around eating and late evenings should take Turin, with about twice as many museums, 4 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, a wider spread of kitchens and more bars and clubs.
Families lean to Turin, which has about twice as many tourist attractions near the centre and similar park space, so wet days are easier to fill; neither city has a theme park within reach.
What the numbers don't tell you
The value figure is a national price level, identical for both by construction, so the value comparison between these two carries no information. The €155 daily budget beside it is a single national estimate rather than a measurement of either city, so neither can be called the cheaper trip.
No weather station near Turin records sunshine hours, so that figure is missing rather than low and one side of the weather comparison is unmeasured; Turin's monthly picture rests on temperature and rainfall alone. Palermo's strongest months, July and August, are also its hottest at 28°C and the ones most people travel in.
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). Turin: 1991-2020 normals, Torino / Caselle (15.4 km from centre).
Palermo's long window runs from May to October. July and August bring highs of 28°C with sea at 26-27°C and rain of 4-11mm, and September still holds 25°C water. Late autumn turns wet, with 67-71mm in October and November.
Turin is at its best in June and July, with highs of 26-29°C and the driest stretch of its summer. Spring and early autumn are much wetter, 102mm in May and 116mm in September, and January highs sit at 7°C.
Getting there
| Flying from | Palermo | Turin |
|---|---|---|
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 10 m €40-52 PMO · 25 km | 1 h 15 m no fares TRN · 14 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 9 h 5 m no fares PMO · 25 km | 8 h 15 m €542-635 1 stop MXP · 103 km |
| NaplesNAP | 1 h 0 m €42-84 PMO · 25 km | 1 h 30 m €180-291 1 stop TRN · 14 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 50 m no fares PMO · 25 km | 1 h 45 m no fares TRN · 14 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 2 h 25 m €101-135 PMO · 25 km | 1 h 20 m no fares TRN · 14 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 50 m €49-107 PMO · 25 km | 1 h 25 m €36-129 TRN · 14 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 2 h 15 m €183-194 PMO · 25 km | 2 h 45 m €171-459 1 stop TRN · 14 km |
| BariBRI | 1 h 10 m no fares PMO · 25 km | 1 h 40 m no fares TRN · 14 km |
| MunichMUC | 2 h 0 m €175-215 1 stop PMO · 25 km | 1 h 15 m no fares TRN · 14 km |
| Tel Aviv YafoTLV | 3 h 10 m €151-346 1 stop PMO · 25 km | 3 h 50 m €119-204 MXP · 103 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 | Turin |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | 239 m |
| Main airport | Falcone–Borsellino Airport (PMO)25 km from centre103 non-stop destinations | Turin Airport (TRN)14 km from centre63 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Palermo | Turin |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 630,167 | 841,600 |
| People per km² | 3,924 | 6,474 |
| Museums within 10 km | 42 | 72 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 1 | 4 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 33 | 78 |
| 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 Palermo or Turin somewhere new.