VacationSelector
Portofino and its bay from the hillside, Portofino
PortofinoPortofino and its bay from the hillside
The old Hokkaido Government Office and its flower beds, Sapporo
SapporoThe old Hokkaido Government Office and its flower beds

Photos: Portofino by Michal Osmenda, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Sapporo by Feri88, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Portofino or Sapporo?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Portofino for

  • beaches
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Portofino’s own page.

Choose Sapporo for

  • prices
  • nightlife
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Sapporo’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Portofino 60, Sapporo 28: Portofino leads by 32 points.
Food & drink. Portofino 36, Sapporo 80: Sapporo leads by 44 points.
Culture & sights. Portofino 22, Sapporo 40: Sapporo leads by 18 points.
Nightlife. Portofino 14, Sapporo 62: Sapporo leads by 48 points.
Nature & outdoors. Portofino 77, Sapporo 86: Sapporo leads by 9 points.
Day trips. Portofino 76, Sapporo 64: Portofino leads by 12 points.
Good for families. Portofino 33, Sapporo 72: Sapporo leads by 39 points.
Getting around. Portofino 50, Sapporo 80: Sapporo leads by 30 points.
Shopping & style. Portofino 29, Sapporo 58: Sapporo leads by 29 points.
Affordability. Portofino 9, Sapporo 60: Sapporo leads by 51 points.
Live music & performing arts. Portofino 7, Sapporo 44: Sapporo leads by 37 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Portofino 42, Sapporo 80: Sapporo leads by 38 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Portofino and Sapporo.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Portofino
38match

Wins on beaches and day trips with your weighting.

Sapporo
Best match
63match

Wins on prices and nightlife with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Portofino in July

27 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
32 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
24 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Sapporo in July

25 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
91 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
19 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
PortofinoSapporo

Where the figures come from

Portofino's temperatures are measured 31 km from the centre, at Genova / Sestri.

Portofino has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Portofino: 1991-2020 normals, Genova / Sestri (31 km from centre). Sapporo: 1991-2020 normals, Sapporo (2.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePortofinoSapporo
Official languageItalianJapanese
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Yen (JPY)
SocketsCFL230 V, 50 HzAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+9
Emergency number112Police 110, fire 119
Elevation20 m5 m
Main airportGenoa Cristoforo Colombo Airport (GOA)32 km from centre25 non-stop destinationsNew Chitose Airport (CTS)42 km from centre42 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasurePortofinoSapporo
City population3551,959,313
People per km²1421,747
Museums within 10 km1433
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 months1 month

Where else could you go?

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

Browse every destination

Sources

Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.