VacationSelector

Pisa or Florence?

Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Your match

Pisa
45
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and year-round weather with your weighting.

Florence
✓ Best match
55
match

Wins on nightlife 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 Florence if the trip is built around museums, churches and a centre you can cross on foot, with the widest choice of restaurants and evenings out of the two.

Choose Pisa if you want a smaller base with the sea within reach, swimmable from June to September, and the kind of family day out Florence cannot offer, including 2 theme parks.

Scoreboard

Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.

PisaFlorence
Beaches & swimming. Pisa leads by 21 points.21
PisaFlorence
Score210
Swim season months40
Beaches 10 km10
Coast distance10 km78 km
Water distance10 km—
Places to eat. Florence leads by 25 points.25
PisaFlorence
Score3459
Restaurants within 2 km of centre3791,299
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km915
Museums & heritage. Florence leads by 27 points.27
PisaFlorence
Score5582
Museums within 10 km27132
Museums within 2 km of centre2293
Share of museums within 2 km %8170
Unesco sites within 50 km34
Nightlife. Florence leads by 28 points.28
PisaFlorence
Score2856
Drinking venues within 4 km232818
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre203599
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %8873
Nightclubs within 4 km334
Nature & day trips. Pisa leads by 1 points.1
PisaFlorence
Score3938
Protected land share 50 km %99
Landscape blanket share 50 km %02
Land share of disc %65100
Park area within 2 km40 hectares86 hectares
Good for families. Florence leads by 5 points.5
PisaFlorence
Score4752
Tourist attractions within 2 km2030
Park area within 2 km40 hectares86 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km20
Sights concentration. Florence leads by 28 points.28
PisaFlorence
Score4775
Notable places within 2 km58292
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Pisa and Florence are level on 68.
PisaFlorence
Score6868
Price level global64.964.9
Daily budget€155€155
Year-round weather. Pisa leads by 2 points.2
PisaFlorence
Score7068
Monthly daytime high11.4 °C to 30.3 °C10.8 °C to 32.7 °C
Monthly rainfall32 mm to 132 mm32 mm to 132 mm
Dry months22
0255075100

Where they differ

Florence has many times as many notable places within walking distance of the centre, so days need less transport, and many times as many museums. There are about three times as many restaurants near the centre and a wider range of kitchens, about three times as many places to drink, and far more nightclubs.

Pisa has a beach nearby where Florence has none, and sea at 21°C or more for four months. It also has 2 theme parks within reach, where Florence has none.

Where they are alike

The two sit in the same landscape for days out: 9% of the land around each is protected, and both keep park space near the centre.

Their weather is close too: the same 2360 hours of sunshine a year, the same rainfall month by month, and highs from 11°C in January to 33°C in Florence and 30°C in Pisa. Both also suit families, with attractions and parks near the centre.

Which traveller are you?

A traveller who comes for museums and churches should take Florence: many times as many museums as Pisa, most of the notable places within walking distance of the centre, and 4 UNESCO-listed sites within day-trip reach against 3.

Families split. Pisa has the beach and 2 theme parks within reach, plus sea at 25°C in August. Florence answers with about twice as many attractions and twice as much park space near the centre.

Anyone travelling for the eating and the evenings should choose Florence: about three times as many restaurants near the centre, a wider range of kitchens, and far more bars and clubs.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value comparison between these two carries no information: it is a national price level, identical for both by construction, so nothing here makes one cheaper than the other. The €155 daily budget is one national estimate rather than a measurement of either city.

Pisa's swimming edge rests on 1 beach and four months of usable sea, and those are the hottest, busiest months. Florence's walkable concentration cuts both ways: everything close together also means everyone in the same streets. September reads as warm while carrying 102mm.

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.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Pisa
11
13
16
18
23
27
30
30
26
21
16
12
Florence
11
12
16
20
24
29
32
33
27
22
16
11
Sea temperature, °C
Pisa
14
13
14
15
18
22
24
25
23
20
18
16
Florence
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Pisa
68
58
59
65
63
41
32
35
102
125
132
95
Florence
68
58
59
65
63
41
32
35
102
125
132
95
Daylight, hours per day
Pisa
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Florence
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Pisa
4
4
6
6
8
9
11
10
7
5
4
3
Florence
4
4
6
6
8
9
11
10
7
5
4
3

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Pisa: 1991-2020 normals, Pisa / S. Giusto (3.9 km from centre). Florence: 1995-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Firenze / Peretola (5.6 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Florence is at its best in May and June, when highs run 24-29°C and rain eases to 41mm. September stays warm at 27°C but carries 102mm, with wetter weeks through autumn.

Pisa suits July and August, when highs hold at 30°C rather than Florence's hotter peak, rain falls to 32-35mm and the sea reaches 25°C, the only swimming either city offers. Winter in both is cool and wet, with little to separate them.

Getting there

Flying fromPisaFlorence
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
2 h 5 m
€48-62
PSA · 4 km
2 h 5 m
€180-199
1 stop
FLR · 6 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 40 m
no fares
PSA · 4 km
1 h 40 m
€143-159
FLR · 6 km
TiranaTIA
1 h 35 m
no fares
PSA · 4 km
1 h 35 m
no fares
PSA · 70 km
RomeFCO, CIA
55 m
€136-139
1 stop
FLR · 65 km
55 m
€136-139
1 stop
FLR · 6 km
AmsterdamAMS
1 h 55 m
€210-262
1 stop
PSA · 4 km
1 h 55 m
€232-255
2 stops
FLR · 6 km
CataniaCTA
1 h 35 m
€55-66
PSA · 4 km
1 h 35 m
€135-156
FLR · 6 km
PalermoPMO
1 h 25 m
no fares
PSA · 4 km
1 h 25 m
no fares
FLR · 6 km
BariBRI
1 h 20 m
no fares
PSA · 4 km
1 h 20 m
no fares
PSA · 70 km
BrindisiBDS
1 h 30 m
no fares
PSA · 4 km
1 h 30 m
no fares
PSA · 70 km
MarrakechRAK
3 h 10 m
no fares
PSA · 4 km
3 h 10 m
no fares
PSA · 70 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 2026-09 to 2026-09, 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

MeasurePisaFlorence
Official languageItalianItalian
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCFL230 V, 50 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation4 m50 m
Main airportPisa International Airport (PSA)4 km from centre81 non-stop destinationsFlorence Airport, Peretola (FLR)6 km from centre36 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasurePisaFlorence
City population88,737360,930
People per km²4793,528
Museums within 10 km27140
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km34
Distinct cuisines in the centre2962
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 months–

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Pisa or Florence somewhere new.

Browse every destination we have measured

Sources

© OpenStreetMap contributors, data available under the Open Database Licence. Place counts include data from Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA Permissive 2.0), assembled from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and other providers. Notable-place counts from Wikidata (CC0), weighted by Wikipedia language editions. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Non-stop route lists from the "Airlines and destinations" tables on English Wikipedia airport articles, by Wikipedia contributors, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Currency from the ISO 4217 register maintained by SIX, cross-checked against country data from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Price level from World Bank open data (PPP conversion factor for private consumption and official exchange rate), CC BY 4.0. Time zones from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); clock offsets computed from the IANA time zone database. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-09-01. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.