Paris 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 places to eat and nightlife with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming and nature & day trips 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 Paris if the eating and the evenings are the point: about twice as many restaurants near the centre, a much wider range of kitchens, and about twice as many places to drink.
Choose Rome if you want warmth and water, with 5 months of sea at 21°C or more, more park space near the centre, and easier going with children.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Rome leads by 33 points.33
| Paris | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 33 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 5 |
| Beaches 10 km | 2 | 3 |
| Coast distance | 149 km | 24 km |
| Water distance | — | 24 km |
Places to eat. Paris leads by 30 points.30
| Paris | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 90 | 60 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 4,732 | 2,241 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 33 | 10 |
Museums & heritage. Rome leads by 8 points.8
| Paris | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 76 | 84 |
| Museums within 10 km | 185 | 161 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 65 | 79 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 35 | 49 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 4 | 7 |
Nightlife. Paris leads by 14 points.14
| Paris | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 88 | 74 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 3,796 | 2,022 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 1,694 | 912 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 45 | 45 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 201 | 85 |
Nature & day trips. Rome leads by 22 points.22
| Paris | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 48 | 70 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 28 | 19 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 26 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 78 |
| Park area within 2 km | 82 hectares | 172 hectares |
Good for families. Rome leads by 11 points.11
| Paris | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 75 | 86 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 89 | 126 |
| Park area within 2 km | 82 hectares | 172 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 3 | 4 |
Sights concentration. Rome leads by 5 points.5
| Paris | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 94 | 99 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 865 | 1,125 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Rome leads by 6 points.6
| Paris | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 68 |
| Price level global | 73.7 | 64.9 |
| Daily budget | €160 | €155 |
Year-round weather. Rome leads by 5 points.5
| Paris | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 66 | 71 |
| Monthly daytime high | 7.8 °C to 26 °C | 12 °C to 31.4 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 38 mm to 75 mm | 21 mm to 114 mm |
| Dry months | 1 | 3 |
Where they differ
Paris is the stronger city for eating out: about twice as many restaurants near the centre and a much wider range of kitchens. The countryside around it is more heavily protected too, 28% of the land against 19% around Rome.
Rome has the sea. It counts 3 beaches nearby to Paris's 2, and 5 months when the water sits at 21°C or more, where Paris has none. Near the centre it also has about twice as much park space, which matters on a long walking day.
Where they are alike
Both are walking cities first. What you have come to see sits close together in each centre, Rome with somewhat more notable places within reach on foot, so in either you can spend days without transport.
They are also matched on museums and heritage, with about as many museums in each, though Rome has 7 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach to Paris's 4. National daily budgets are close as well, €160 for France and €155 for Italy.
Which traveller are you?
A traveller who plans the trip around meals and late evenings should take Paris. It has about twice as many restaurants near the centre, a much wider range of kitchens, and roughly twice as many bars and clubs.
Families are better served in Rome, with somewhat more attractions near the centre, about twice as much park space within walking distance, 4 theme parks within reach against Paris's 3, and beaches to fall back on.
For heritage on foot, either works. Both put a great deal within walking distance and hold comparable museum collections, but Rome adds day trips to 7 UNESCO-listed places against Paris's 4.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget is a national estimate of restaurant and hotel prices, €160 for France and €155 for Italy, not a measurement of Paris or Rome. Both are capitals and heavily visited, and either can sit well above its own country's average, by more than the gap between the two figures.
No weather station near Paris reports sunshine hours, so that figure is missing rather than low, and the month-by-month picture there rests on temperature and rainfall alone. Rome's swimming months are also its hottest, at 31°C by day, and the beaches are near the city rather than in it.
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. Paris: 1991-2020 normals, Paris-Montsouris (4.6 km from centre). Rome: 1991-2020 normals, Roma / Ciampino (15.1 km from centre).
Paris is at its best from June to August, when highs run 24-26°C and rain stays moderate. May is warm but its wettest month at 75mm, so early summer is the safer booking.
Rome is better either side of that. May and September are warm without the heat of high summer, which reaches 31°C. High summer is the dry stretch, under 40mm, while autumn is heavy, over 90mm from October onwards. September also keeps the sea warm.
Getting there
| Flying from | Paris | Rome |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 5 m €63-103 CDG · 22 km | 2 h 20 m €76-143 1 stop FCO · 23 km |
| MadridMAD | 1 h 55 m €107-141 ORY · 14 km | 2 h 15 m €98-119 FCO · 23 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 7 h 30 m €579-648 1 stop CDG · 22 km | 8 h 45 m €446-597 FCO · 23 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 40 m €110-135 CDG · 22 km | 1 h 40 m €44-74 FCO · 23 km |
| MilanMXP, BGY, LIN | 1 h 20 m €61-89 CDG · 22 km | 1 h 15 m €84-118 FCO · 23 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 3 h 15 m €152-378 1 stop CDG · 22 km | 2 h 15 m €136-291 FCO · 23 km |
| CataniaCTA | 2 h 35 m no fares CDG · 22 km | 1 h 20 m €60-112 FCO · 23 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 6 h 50 m €292-389 1 stop CDG · 22 km | 5 h 45 m €270-340 FCO · 23 km |
| Sao PauloGRU, VCP, CGH, RTE | 11 h 45 m €806-1124 CDG · 22 km | 11 h 45 m €893-1016 1 stop FCO · 23 km |
| SeoulICN, GMP | 11 h 10 m €509-719 1 stop CDG · 22 km | 11 h 15 m €630-760 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 | Paris | Rome |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | French | Italian |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CE230 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 | 27 m | 21 m |
| Main airport | Charles de Gaulle International Airport (CDG)22 km from centre277 non-stop destinations | Rome–Fiumicino Leonardo da Vinci International Airport (FCO)23 km from centre230 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Paris | Rome |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 2,103,778 | 2,748,109 |
| People per km² | 19,960 | 2,135 |
| Museums within 10 km | 251 | 177 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 4 | 7 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 169 | 65 |
| 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 Paris or Rome somewhere new.