Rome or Athens?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on nature & day trips and sights concentration with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming and places to eat 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 Athens if you want the sea within reach of the city, at 6km from the centre, warmer and drier weather through the year, and the busier choice of bars and clubs.
Choose Rome if you want the denser walkable centre, more museums and UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, more protected countryside around the city, and more laid on for children.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Athens leads by 15 points.15
| Rome | Athens | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 33 | 48 |
| Swim season months | 5 | 5 |
| Beaches 10 km | 3 | 14 |
| Coast distance | 24 km | 6 km |
| Water distance | 24 km | 6 km |
Places to eat. Athens leads by 9 points.9
| Rome | Athens | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 60 | 69 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 2,241 | 1,431 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 10 | 25 |
Museums & heritage. Rome leads by 11 points.11
| Rome | Athens | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 84 | 73 |
| Museums within 10 km | 161 | 122 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 79 | 78 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 49 | 64 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 7 | 2 |
Nightlife. Athens leads by 7 points.7
| Rome | Athens | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 74 | 81 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 2,022 | 2,718 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 912 | 1,354 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 45 | 50 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 85 | 136 |
Nature & day trips. Rome leads by 25 points.25
| Rome | Athens | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 70 | 45 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 19 | 5 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 78 | 50 |
| Park area within 2 km | 172 hectares | 128 hectares |
Good for families. Rome leads by 15 points.15
| Rome | Athens | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 86 | 71 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 126 | 68 |
| Park area within 2 km | 172 hectares | 128 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 4 | 1 |
Sights concentration. Rome leads by 24 points.24
| Rome | Athens | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 99 | 75 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 1,125 | 291 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Athens leads by 6 points.6
| Rome | Athens | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 74 |
| Price level global | 64.9 | 55.8 |
| Daily budget | €155 | €125 |
Year-round weather. Athens leads by 3 points.3
| Rome | Athens | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 71 | 74 |
| Monthly daytime high | 12 °C to 31.4 °C | 13.4 °C to 34.5 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 21 mm to 114 mm | 6 mm to 86 mm |
| Dry months | 3 | 7 |
Where they differ
Athens keeps the sea close, 6km from the centre against 24km in Rome, and it has far more beaches within easy reach. It also runs warmer and drier across the year.
Rome has about three times as many notable places within walking distance of the centre, and roughly twice as many tourist attractions near the centre, along with more park space and 4 theme parks within reach against Athens's 1. Protected land covers 19% of the area around Rome against 5% around Athens.
Where they are alike
Both work across the year rather than in one season. August is the warmest month in each and January the coolest, with highs of 12-13°C. Each has five months of sea at 21°C or more, so swimming is a summer proposition in both.
Nights out follow the same pattern in both: about half the drinking places sit near the centre, so an evening stays walkable. Both also sit in broadly similar national price bands for restaurants and hotels.
Which traveller are you?
Travelling with children: Rome. It has about twice as many tourist attractions near the centre, more park space and 4 theme parks within reach against Athens's 1, so days can be filled without long transfers.
Wanting swimming built into a city break, plus late nights: Athens. The sea is 6km from the centre with 14 beaches nearby, and there are about twice as many nightclubs as in Rome.
Here mainly for museums and ancient sites: Rome, with about three times as many notable places within walking distance of the centre and 7 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach. Athens's museums cluster more tightly.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €125 for Greece and €155 for Italy, are national estimates of restaurant and hotel price levels, not measurements of Athens or Rome. A capital or a heavily visited city can sit well away from its country's average, by more than the gap between the two figures, so this says little about what either trip will actually cost.
Athens's coastal advantage rests on proximity and the number of beaches, but the months when the sea is warmest are also the hottest, with highs up to 35°C. Rome's walkable centre is at its most visited in the same high-summer weeks its weather ranks best.
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. Rome: 1991-2020 normals, Roma / Ciampino (15.1 km from centre). Athens: 1991-2020 normals, Athens / Athenai / Pláka (2.2 km from centre).
Athens is at its best in May, when highs reach 27°C and rainfall is around 19mm. It works again in early autumn: the sea still holds 25°C in September, and October is far drier than Rome's 97mm.
Rome is at its strongest in June and July, with highs of 28-31°C and rain falling to 21mm at midsummer. Its spring and autumn are markedly wetter than Athens's, so the dry window is narrower and sits squarely in the hottest part of the year.
Getting there
| Flying from | Rome | Athens |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 20 m €76-143 1 stop FCO · 23 km | 3 h 30 m €115-327 1 stop ATH · 20 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 2 h 0 m €91-122 FCO · 23 km | 3 h 10 m €162-235 ATH · 20 km |
| MadridMAD | 2 h 15 m €98-119 FCO · 23 km | 3 h 30 m €156-172 1 stop ATH · 20 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 2 h 15 m €136-291 FCO · 23 km | 1 h 20 m €95-237 ATH · 20 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 8 h 45 m €446-597 FCO · 23 km | 10 h 0 m €565-638 1 stop ATH · 20 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 40 m €44-74 FCO · 23 km | 2 h 55 m €134-222 1 stop ATH · 20 km |
| MilanMXP, BGY, LIN | 1 h 15 m €84-118 FCO · 23 km | 2 h 25 m €71-91 ATH · 20 km |
| ThessalonikiSKG | 1 h 40 m no fares CIA · 14 km | 1 h 0 m €103-128 ATH · 20 km |
| Tel Aviv YafoTLV | 3 h 20 m €115-179 FCO · 23 km | 2 h 5 m €125-147 ATH · 20 km |
| SeoulICN, GMP | 11 h 15 m €630-760 FCO · 23 km | 10 h 40 m no fares ATH · 20 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 | Rome | Athens |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Italian | Greek |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CFL230 V, 50 Hz | CF230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer | UTC+2, UTC+3 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 | 112 |
| Elevation | 21 m | 74 m |
| Main airport | Rome–Fiumicino Leonardo da Vinci International Airport (FCO)23 km from centre230 non-stop destinations | Athens Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport (ATH)20 km from centre171 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 15 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Rome | Athens |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 2,748,109 | 643,452 |
| People per km² | 2,135 | 16,499 |
| Museums within 10 km | 177 | 88 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 7 | 2 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 65 | 82 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 5 months | 5 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Rome or Athens somewhere new.