Paris or Venice?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on nightlife and places to eat with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming and value for money 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 trip is built around eating and going out, and if you want parks near the centre and protected countryside within reach for day trips.
Choose Venice if swimming decides it: 20 beaches nearby and a sea reaching 26°C in late summer, with its museums and its handful of bars all close to the centre.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Venice leads by 69 points.69
| Paris | Venice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 69 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 4 |
| Beaches 10 km | 2 | 20 |
| Coast distance | 149 km | 4 km |
| Water distance | — | 4 km |
Places to eat. Paris leads by 45 points.45
| Paris | Venice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 90 | 45 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 4,732 | 750 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 33 | 10 |
Museums & heritage. Paris leads by 4 points.4
| Paris | Venice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 76 | 72 |
| Museums within 10 km | 185 | 57 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 65 | 45 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 35 | 79 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 4 | 5 |
Nightlife. Paris leads by 53 points.53
| Paris | Venice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 88 | 35 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 3,796 | 342 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 1,694 | 306 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 45 | 89 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 201 | 3 |
Nature & day trips. Paris leads by 31 points.31
| Paris | Venice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 48 | 17 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 28 | 4 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 26 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 70 |
| Park area within 2 km | 82 hectares | 15 hectares |
Good for families. Paris leads by 18 points.18
| Paris | Venice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 75 | 57 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 89 | 72 |
| Park area within 2 km | 82 hectares | 15 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 3 | 3 |
Sights concentration. Paris leads by 11 points.11
| Paris | Venice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 94 | 83 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 865 | 464 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Venice leads by 6 points.6
| Paris | Venice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 68 |
| Price level global | 73.7 | 64.9 |
| Daily budget | €160 | €155 |
Year-round weather. Paris and Venice are level on 66.
| Paris | Venice | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 66 | 66 |
| Monthly daytime high | 7.8 °C to 26 °C | 8 °C to 30.4 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 38 mm to 75 mm | 36 mm to 106 mm |
| Dry months | 1 | 2 |
Where they differ
Paris has many times as many restaurants near the centre and a much wider range of kitchens, so eating out varies more from night to night. It also has many times as many bars and nightclubs, though only about half of them sit near the centre.
Venice is the one for swimming: 20 beaches nearby against Paris's 2, and four months of sea at 21°C or more, peaking at 26°C in August. Its nightlife is small, but most of it is within walking distance of the centre.
Where they are alike
Neither has the easier year: both fall to 8°C at the coldest and both peak in late summer, with Venice running a little hotter in between.
Both keep their heritage close at hand. Venice has 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Paris's 4, and each centre is dense enough to walk between the main sights. The national price estimates for the two countries are also close, at €160 and €155 a day.
Which traveller are you?
If you travel to eat and to go out late, take Paris: many more restaurants near the centre, a far wider range of kitchens, and many more bars and clubs to move between.
If swimming decides the trip, take Venice: 20 beaches nearby and four months with the sea at 21°C or more, against a city with almost no swimming of its own.
Families and walkers are better served in Paris, with far more park space near the centre and 28% of the surrounding land protected against 4% around Venice; both have 3 theme parks within reach.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €160 and €155, are national estimates of restaurant and hotel price levels for the two countries, not measurements of either city. A capital and a heavily visited city can both sit well above their national averages, by more than the gap between the two figures, so neither number tells you which trip costs more.
No weather station near Paris records sunshine hours, so that figure is missing rather than low, and its monthly ratings rest on temperature and rainfall alone. Venice's swimming window is also narrow: the warm sea arrives with the hottest weather and is followed by the wettest months of its year.
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). Venice: 1991-2020 normals, Treviso / S. Angelo (26.1 km from centre).
Paris is most comfortable from June to August, with highs of 24-26°C and rainfall of 51-58mm, and September still holds 22°C without much added rain.
Venice starts earlier and runs hotter, but pays for it in rain: May is already warm at 24°C yet wet, and July and August reach 30°C with the sea at 26°C. Autumn brings its heaviest rainfall, up to 106mm, so a late-season visit is a gamble.
Getting there
| Flying from | Paris | Venice |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 5 m €63-103 CDG · 22 km | 2 h 0 m €46-119 1 stop VCE · 7 km |
| MadridMAD | 1 h 55 m €107-141 ORY · 14 km | 2 h 20 m €102-159 VCE · 7 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 40 m €110-135 CDG · 22 km | 1 h 45 m €41-56 VCE · 7 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 7 h 30 m €579-648 1 stop CDG · 22 km | 8 h 30 m €637-650 VCE · 7 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 10 m €188-212 CDG · 22 km | 1 h 45 m €190-215 1 stop VCE · 7 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 55 m €118-132 ORY · 14 km | 1 h 10 m €81-119 VCE · 7 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 3 h 15 m €152-378 1 stop CDG · 22 km | 2 h 20 m €148-150 VCE · 7 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 6 h 50 m €292-389 1 stop CDG · 22 km | 5 h 55 m €366-421 2 stops VCE · 7 km |
| BeijingPEK, PKX | 10 h 20 m no fares CDG · 22 km | 9 h 55 m no fares VCE · 7 km |
| CancunCUN | 10 h 20 m no fares CDG · 22 km | 11 h 10 m no fares VRN · 113 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 | Venice |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | 2 m |
| Main airport | Charles de Gaulle International Airport (CDG)22 km from centre277 non-stop destinations | Venice Marco Polo Airport (VCE)7 km from centre98 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Paris | Venice |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 2,103,778 | 250,369 |
| People per km² | 19,960 | 602 |
| Museums within 10 km | 251 | 52 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 4 | 5 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 169 | 46 |
| 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 Paris or Venice somewhere new.