Pisa or Genoa?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on good for families and nature & day trips with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming and nightlife 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 Genoa if swimming matters most: the sea meets the centre, and the city carries the wider choice of restaurants, bars and walkable sights within one compact core.
Choose Pisa if you are travelling with children and want parks and theme parks within reach, are content with the sea 10km from the centre, and would rather have warmer summer afternoons near 30°C than a busy waterfront.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Genoa leads by 52 points.52
| Pisa | Genoa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 21 | 73 |
| Swim season months | 4 | 4 |
| Beaches 10 km | 1 | 37 |
| Coast distance | 10 km | 0 km |
| Water distance | 10 km | 0 km |
Places to eat. Genoa leads by 16 points.16
| Pisa | Genoa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 34 | 50 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 379 | 691 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 9 | 14 |
Museums & heritage. Pisa and Genoa are level on 55.
| Pisa | Genoa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 55 | 55 |
| Museums within 10 km | 27 | 47 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 22 | 33 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 81 | 70 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 3 | 1 |
Nightlife. Genoa leads by 22 points.22
| Pisa | Genoa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 28 | 50 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 232 | 637 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 203 | 419 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 88 | 66 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 3 | 17 |
Nature & day trips. Pisa leads by 4 points.4
| Pisa | Genoa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 39 | 35 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 9 | 8 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 65 | 61 |
| Park area within 2 km | 40 hectares | 29 hectares |
Good for families. Pisa leads by 9 points.9
| Pisa | Genoa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 47 | 38 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 20 | 21 |
| Park area within 2 km | 40 hectares | 29 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 2 | 0 |
Sights concentration. Genoa leads by 14 points.14
| Pisa | Genoa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 47 | 61 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 58 | 130 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Pisa and Genoa are level on 68.
| Pisa | Genoa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 68 |
| Price level global | 64.9 | 64.9 |
| Daily budget | €155 | €155 |
Year-round weather. Genoa leads by 3 points.3
| Pisa | Genoa | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 70 | 73 |
| Monthly daytime high | 11.4 °C to 30.3 °C | 11.7 °C to 27.9 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 32 mm to 132 mm | 12 mm to 122 mm |
| Dry months | 2 | 3 |
Where they differ
Genoa's centre sits on the water, with 37 beaches nearby against Pisa's 1. It has about twice as many restaurants near the centre and a wider range of kitchens, far more bars and clubs, and more notable places within walking distance.
Pisa suits children better: 2 theme parks within reach where Genoa has none, and more park space near the centre. Some 9% of the land around it is protected, slightly more than around Genoa, and 3 UNESCO-listed places lie within day-trip reach against Genoa's 1.
Where they are alike
Heritage is where the two land in the same place. Genoa holds about twice as many museums, while Pisa answers with more UNESCO-listed sites within day-trip reach. Either way, several days of indoor sightseeing without repetition.
The weather is close, and the sea is identical: both warm to 25°C in August and both give four months warm enough to swim. Annual sunshine is similar, and both sit in countryside with a comparable share of protected land.
Which traveller are you?
Sea swimmers should take Genoa: the centre meets the water, 37 beaches lie within reach, and the warm-sea season is long enough to plan around. Pisa has one beach, 10km out.
Families with young children will find Pisa easier: 2 theme parks within reach, more park space near the centre, and a smaller centre that does not demand long days of walking.
Anyone travelling to eat and go out belongs in Genoa, with roughly twice the restaurants near the centre, a wider range of kitchens and far more bars and clubs than Pisa offers.
What the numbers don't tell you
Treat the value comparison as empty. It is a national price level, identical for both by construction, so it says nothing about which of these two cities costs less; the €155 a day beside it is one national estimate, not a measurement of Genoa or Pisa.
Genoa's beach advantage and the best-rated months in both cities fall in the same few weeks of high summer, when the coast is busiest and the heat is at its peak. Annual sunshine totals hide the autumn: October and November bring 101-132mm to both, so a quieter shoulder trip can be a wet one.
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. Pisa: 1991-2020 normals, Pisa / S. Giusto (3.9 km from centre). Genoa: 1991-2020 normals, Genova / Sestri (6.7 km from centre).
Genoa is at its best in July and August, with highs of 27-28°C, sea at 24-25°C and just 12-20mm of rain, the driest stretch of its year. It is the one window where warm sea and dry weather coincide.
Pisa suits late spring better. Highs of 23-27°C in May and June come with less rain than its high summer, and afternoons stay short of 30°C. From September both turn wet, Pisa the wetter of the two, so a shoulder trip carries some risk.
Getting there
| Flying from | Pisa | Genoa |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 5 m €48-62 PSA · 4 km | 1 h 55 m no fares GOA · 7 km |
| MadridMAD | 2 h 5 m €88-193 PSA · 4 km | 2 h 0 m €63-91 MXP · 137 km |
| TiranaTIA | 1 h 35 m no fares PSA · 4 km | 1 h 45 m no fares GOA · 7 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 55 m €136-139 1 stop FLR · 65 km | 1 h 10 m no fares GOA · 7 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 2 h 25 m €154-191 1 stop BLQ · 115 km | 2 h 40 m €140-309 MXP · 137 km |
| PalermoPMO | 1 h 25 m no fares PSA · 4 km | 1 h 35 m no fares GOA · 7 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 1 h 30 m no fares PSA · 4 km | 1 h 15 m €67-76 LIN · 119 km |
| CataniaCTA | 1 h 35 m €55-66 PSA · 4 km | 1 h 45 m €80-177 1 stop GOA · 7 km |
| ManchesterMAN | 2 h 20 m no fares PSA · 4 km | 2 h 0 m no fares MXP · 137 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 5 h 55 m no fares BLQ · 115 km | 6 h 10 m €375-563 MXP · 137 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
| Measure | Pisa | Genoa |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | 4 m | 20 m |
| Main airport | Pisa International Airport (PSA)4 km from centre81 non-stop destinations | Genoa Cristoforo Colombo Airport (GOA)7 km from centre23 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Pisa | Genoa |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 88,737 | 558,745 |
| People per km² | 479 | 2,325 |
| Museums within 10 km | 27 | 51 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 3 | 1 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 29 | 41 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 4 months | 4 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Pisa or Genoa somewhere new.