VacationSelector

Pisa or Rome?

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

Your match

Pisa
45
match

Has no clear advantage with the weighting you have chosen.

Rome
✓ Best match
72
match

Wins on sights concentration 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 Pisa if you want a small city you can cross on foot, with the sea only 10km away and its museums and bars close together.

Choose Rome if you want depth: many times more to see within walking distance of the centre, far more places to eat and drink, much more for children, and a September that stays warm and drier.

Scoreboard

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

PisaRome
Beaches & swimming. Rome leads by 12 points.12
PisaRome
Score2133
Swim season months45
Beaches 10 km13
Coast distance10 km24 km
Water distance10 km24 km
Places to eat. Rome leads by 26 points.26
PisaRome
Score3460
Restaurants within 2 km of centre3792,241
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km910
Museums & heritage. Rome leads by 29 points.29
PisaRome
Score5584
Museums within 10 km27161
Museums within 2 km of centre2279
Share of museums within 2 km %8149
Unesco sites within 50 km37
Nightlife. Rome leads by 46 points.46
PisaRome
Score2874
Drinking venues within 4 km2322,022
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre203912
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %8845
Nightclubs within 4 km385
Nature & day trips. Rome leads by 31 points.31
PisaRome
Score3970
Protected land share 50 km %919
Landscape blanket share 50 km %00
Land share of disc %6578
Park area within 2 km40 hectares172 hectares
Good for families. Rome leads by 39 points.39
PisaRome
Score4786
Tourist attractions within 2 km20126
Park area within 2 km40 hectares172 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km24
Sights concentration. Rome leads by 52 points.52
PisaRome
Score4799
Notable places within 2 km581,125
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Pisa and Rome are level on 68.
PisaRome
Score6868
Price level global64.964.9
Daily budget€155€155
Year-round weather. Rome leads by 1 points.1
PisaRome
Score7071
Monthly daytime high11.4 °C to 30.3 °C12 °C to 31.4 °C
Monthly rainfall32 mm to 132 mm21 mm to 114 mm
Dry months23
0255075100

Where they differ

Pisa is small and quickly crossed: the museums and bars it has sit close to the centre, and the sea is 10km from town.

Rome has many times more notable places within walking distance, so a day on foot returns more. It has many times as many bars and clubs, though only about half are near the centre, so nights out involve travel. For families there are far more attractions and park space near the centre, and 4 theme parks within reach against Pisa's 2.

Where they are alike

Their years look much the same. Highs run 11-30°C in Pisa and 12-31°C in Rome, both peaking in August, and both are mild rather than cold in winter.

Beaches are a secondary matter for both: the coast is a trip out from the centre rather than part of the city, and the sea is at its warmest, 25°C, in the same month. Both also fall under one national price estimate, about €155 a day.

Which traveller are you?

Someone travelling for museums and old stones should go to Rome: many times as many museums, and 7 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Pisa's 3. Pisa's heritage is real but quickly seen.

Families are better served in Rome, with far more attractions and park space near the centre and more theme parks within reach. Pisa's advantage is scale: less walking, less transport, fewer decisions in a day.

Anyone who wants a quiet base with swimming in mind should take Pisa, where the sea is 10km from the centre rather than 24km, and the evening options stay within a short walk.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value comparison between these two carries no information. Both are given the same national price level, identical by construction, and the €155 a day beside it is one national estimate rather than a measurement of either city. Nothing here tells you which trip costs less.

Rome's edge on beaches is thin and comes with a condition: its coast is 24km from the centre, so swimming is a day out, while Pisa's is 10km. And the months that read best are also the hottest and busiest, up to 31°C, with the sights figures counting what stands there, not how many people are in front of 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.

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
Rome
12
13
16
18
24
28
31
31
27
22
17
13
Sea temperature, °C
Pisa
14
13
14
15
18
22
24
25
23
20
18
16
Rome
15
14
14
15
18
22
25
25
24
21
19
16
Rainfall, mm
Pisa
68
58
59
65
63
41
32
35
102
125
132
95
Rome
67
69
57
75
62
33
21
38
70
97
114
103
Daylight, hours per day
Pisa
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Rome
10
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
Rome
4
5
6
7
9
10
11
11
8
6
4
4

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). Rome: 1991-2020 normals, Roma / Ciampino (15.1 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Pisa is at its best from May to August: highs climb from 23°C to 30°C, the sea reaches 25°C and midsummer rain falls to 32mm. From September the rain returns hard, above 100mm a month, and stays that way through autumn.

Rome holds up later. Its September is as warm and much drier than Pisa's, nearer 70mm, and its midsummer is drier still. Winters are close, both near 12°C and wet, so neither is a winter trip.

Getting there

Flying fromPisaRome
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
2 h 5 m
€48-62
PSA · 4 km
2 h 20 m
€76-143
1 stop
FCO · 23 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 40 m
no fares
PSA · 4 km
2 h 0 m
€91-122
FCO · 23 km
CataniaCTA
1 h 35 m
€55-66
PSA · 4 km
1 h 20 m
€60-112
FCO · 23 km
PalermoPMO
1 h 25 m
no fares
PSA · 4 km
1 h 10 m
€38-50
FCO · 23 km
TiranaTIA
1 h 35 m
no fares
PSA · 4 km
1 h 25 m
€30-91
FCO · 23 km
MadridMAD
2 h 5 m
€88-193
PSA · 4 km
2 h 15 m
€98-119
FCO · 23 km
CagliariCAG
1 h 15 m
no fares
PSA · 4 km
1 h 10 m
€116-125
FCO · 23 km
BariBRI
1 h 20 m
no fares
PSA · 4 km
1 h 5 m
€36-62
FCO · 23 km
BrusselsBRU, CRL
1 h 45 m
no fares
PSA · 4 km
2 h 5 m
€94-137
1 stop
FCO · 23 km
MarrakechRAK
3 h 10 m
no fares
PSA · 4 km
3 h 10 m
no fares
CIA · 14 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

MeasurePisaRome
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 m21 m
Main airportPisa International Airport (PSA)4 km from centre81 non-stop destinationsRome–Fiumicino Leonardo da Vinci International Airport (FCO)23 km from centre230 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasurePisaRome
City population88,7372,748,109
People per km²4792,135
Museums within 10 km27177
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km37
Distinct cuisines in the centre2965
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 months5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Pisa or Rome 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 2026-08-31. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.