Rome or London?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on beaches & swimming and nature & day trips with your weighting.
Wins on places to eat 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 London if you are going for the eating and the evenings: a far wider range of kitchens, more restaurants near the centre, and far more bars and clubs.
Choose Rome if you want warmth, walking and water: daytime highs of 12-31°C across the year, sea at 21°C or more for five months, and more packed into walking distance of the centre.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Rome leads by 33 points.33
| Rome | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 33 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 5 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 3 | 47 |
| Coast distance | 24 km | 43 km |
| Water distance | 24 km | — |
Places to eat. London leads by 28 points.28
| Rome | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 60 | 88 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 2,241 | 3,317 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 10 | 40 |
Museums & heritage. Rome leads by 12 points.12
| Rome | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 84 | 72 |
| Museums within 10 km | 161 | 148 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 79 | 49 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 49 | 33 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 7 | 4 |
Nightlife. London leads by 21 points.21
| Rome | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 74 | 95 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 2,022 | 5,327 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 912 | 2,443 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 45 | 46 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 85 | 312 |
Nature & day trips. Rome leads by 30 points.30
| Rome | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 70 | 40 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 19 | 16 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 14 |
| Land share of disc % | 78 | 97 |
| Park area within 2 km | 172 hectares | 84 hectares |
Good for families. Rome leads by 11 points.11
| Rome | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 86 | 75 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 126 | 85 |
| Park area within 2 km | 172 hectares | 84 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 4 | 3 |
Sights concentration. Rome leads by 10 points.10
| Rome | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 99 | 89 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 1,125 | 649 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Rome leads by 14 points.14
| Rome | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 54 |
| Price level global | 64.9 | 84.9 |
| Daily budget | €155 | — |
Year-round weather. Rome leads by 8 points.8
| Rome | London | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 71 | 63 |
| Monthly daytime high | 12 °C to 31.4 °C | 8.2 °C to 23.8 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 21 mm to 114 mm | 38 mm to 67 mm |
| Dry months | 3 | 1 |
Where they differ
London's strength is the eating: somewhat more restaurants near the centre than Rome, and a far wider range of kitchens. The nightlife gap is wider still, with roughly three times as many places to drink and nightclubs.
Rome is the better bet for swimming and green space. It has just 3 beaches nearby against London's 47, but its sea stays at 21°C or above for five months, up to 25°C in August. More of the land around it is protected, with roughly twice the park space near the centre.
Where they are alike
Both cities run the same seasonal shape: coolest in January, warmest in mid-summer, and rain in every month rather than a long dry season. Neither winter rules out a visit, and both are comfortable to walk from spring through autumn.
They also both reward walking: dense centres where the notable places sit close together, museum collections of broadly similar number, theme parks within reach of each, and plenty of attractions near the centre.
Which traveller are you?
Travelling to eat and stay out late: London. More restaurants near the centre, a far wider range of kitchens, and many more places to drink and dance once the meal is over.
Families: Rome. More tourist attractions near the centre, about twice the park space, 4 theme parks within reach against London's 3, and a sea at 21°C or more through the summer.
History on foot: Rome. The notable places sit far closer together around its centre, and there are 7 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against London's 4, though the two hold a similar number of museums.
What the numbers don't tell you
No cost comparison is possible here. Rome carries a daily budget of about €155; the dataset holds no equivalent figure for London, so nothing here tells you whether one city is dearer than the other. The value ranking rests on a different measure both cities do have, not on what a day actually costs.
The beach figure is easy to misread. London has 47 beaches nearby against Rome's 3, yet none of them sits by a sea that reaches 21°C. Rome's edge is warm water, not shoreline, and getting to it means leaving the city; its best swimming months are also its hottest.
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). London: 1991-2020 normals, London Heathrow Airport (22.5 km from centre).
London peaks in July and August, with highs of 23-24°C and rain near 50mm, no wetter than any other month of its year. Winter is the weak stretch, cool and carrying the heaviest rain.
Rome is better either side of high summer: May and June bring 24-28°C with rain down to 33mm, and September still holds 27°C. Peak summer is hot at 31°C but nearly dry, while by late autumn monthly rain passes 100mm.
Getting there
| Flying from | Rome | London |
|---|---|---|
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 2 h 0 m €91-122 FCO · 23 km | 1 h 5 m €92-144 LHR · 23 km |
| MadridMAD | 2 h 15 m €98-119 FCO · 23 km | 2 h 10 m €124-216 LHR · 23 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 40 m €44-74 FCO · 23 km | 2 h 0 m €61-144 LGW · 40 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 8 h 45 m €446-597 FCO · 23 km | 7 h 10 m €518-651 1 stop LHR · 23 km |
| MilanMXP, BGY, LIN | 1 h 15 m €84-118 FCO · 23 km | 1 h 45 m €83-138 LGW · 40 km |
| CataniaCTA | 1 h 20 m €60-112 FCO · 23 km | 2 h 55 m no fares LGW · 40 km |
| PalermoPMO | 1 h 10 m €38-50 FCO · 23 km | 2 h 50 m no fares STN · 49 km |
| MarrakechRAK | 3 h 10 m no fares CIA · 14 km | 3 h 20 m €128-183 1 stop LGW · 40 km |
| Sao PauloGRU, VCP, CGH, RTE | 11 h 45 m €893-1016 1 stop FCO · 23 km | 11 h 50 m no fares LHR · 23 km |
| ShanghaiPVG, SHA | 11 h 25 m no fares FCO · 23 km | 11 h 30 m €665-831 1 stop LHR · 23 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 | London |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Italian | English |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Pound Sterling (GBP) |
| Sockets | CFL230 V, 50 Hz | G230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Left |
| Time zone | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer | UTC, UTC+1 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 | 112 or 999 |
| Elevation | 21 m | 4 m |
| Main airport | Rome–Fiumicino Leonardo da Vinci International Airport (FCO)23 km from centre230 non-stop destinations | London Heathrow Airport (LHR)23 km from centre220 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 8 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Rome | London |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 2,748,109 | 8,799,728 |
| People per km² | 2,135 | 5,598 |
| Museums within 10 km | 177 | 215 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 7 | 4 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 65 | 116 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 5 months | – |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Rome or London somewhere new.