Toledo or Valencia?
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 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 Toledo if you want a small, walkable city where the attractions sit close together, a theme park within reach and summers dry enough that rain rarely changes the plan.
Choose Valencia if you want the sea, with 12 beaches nearby and warm swimming from June to October, plus far more restaurants, bars and clubs than Toledo can offer.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Valencia leads by 67 points.67
| Toledo | Valencia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 67 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 5 |
| Beaches 10 km | 1 | 12 |
| Coast distance | 320 km | 3 km |
| Water distance | — | 3 km |
Places to eat. Valencia leads by 54 points.54
| Toledo | Valencia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 24 | 78 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 249 | 1,995 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 7 | 33 |
Museums & heritage. Valencia leads by 9 points.9
| Toledo | Valencia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 46 | 55 |
| Museums within 10 km | 19 | 59 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 19 | 26 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 100 | 44 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 2 | 2 |
Nightlife. Valencia leads by 53 points.53
| Toledo | Valencia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 17 | 70 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 120 | 1,513 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 115 | 957 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 96 | 63 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 5 | 108 |
Nature & day trips. Valencia leads by 25 points.25
| Toledo | Valencia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 28 | 53 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 4 | 10 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 64 |
| Park area within 2 km | 59 hectares | 119 hectares |
Good for families. Toledo leads by 12 points.12
| Toledo | Valencia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 54 | 42 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 32 | 12 |
| Park area within 2 km | 59 hectares | 119 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 1 | 0 |
Sights concentration. Valencia leads by 6 points.6
| Toledo | Valencia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 46 | 52 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 55 | 78 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Toledo and Valencia are level on 71.
| Toledo | Valencia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 71 | 71 |
| Price level global | 60.8 | 60.8 |
| Daily budget | €122 | €122 |
Year-round weather. Valencia leads by 10 points.10
| Toledo | Valencia | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 74 | 84 |
| Monthly daytime high | 11.9 °C to 35.1 °C | 16.8 °C to 30.6 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 6 mm to 49 mm | 7 mm to 70 mm |
| Dry months | 11 | 8 |
Where they differ
Toledo has about three times as many tourist attractions near its centre as Valencia, plus a theme park within reach. It runs warmer and drier overall, with more months at 40mm of rain or less.
Valencia has 12 beaches nearby against Toledo's 1, and 5 months of sea at 21°C or more where Toledo has none. It also has many times as many restaurants near the centre, a much wider range of kitchens, and many times as many bars and clubs, and more protected land around it.
Where they are alike
Both keep their notable places within walking distance of the centre, Valencia with somewhat more of them; in either city the main sights can be covered on foot without transport.
Both have 2 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, though Valencia holds more museums and Toledo's sit more tightly around its centre. Both are sunny through the year, each with more than 2,700 hours of sunshine, and in both January is the coolest month.
Which traveller are you?
Anyone whose holiday centres on swimming should go to Valencia: 12 beaches nearby and 5 months of sea warm enough to stay in, against 1 beach and no swimming season at all in Toledo.
Families with young children lean to Toledo, which has about three times as many tourist attractions near its centre and a theme park within reach; Valencia answers with more park space close to the centre.
Travellers who plan the day around eating and going out belong in Valencia, with many times as many restaurants near the centre, a much wider range of kitchens and far more bars and clubs.
What the numbers don't tell you
The value comparison here carries no information: it is a national price level, identical for both by construction, and the €122 a day beside it is one national estimate rather than a measurement of either city. Nothing here says which city costs less to visit.
Valencia's beach strength peaks exactly when everyone else's does, with the warmest sea in August, and its warm autumn arrives with the wettest months of its year. Toledo's driest, sunniest weeks are also its hottest, at 35°C, and its family strength rests on attractions packed near the centre of a city of 87,200 rather than on water it does not have.
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. Toledo: 1991-2020 normals, Toledo (2.3 km from centre). Valencia: 1991-2020 normals, Valencia (1.6 km from centre).
Toledo is at its best in May and September, with highs of 25-29°C and moderate rain. July and August are its driest, at 6-9mm, but they reach 35°C, hard work on foot.
Valencia suits June to August, with highs of 28-31°C and sea at 22-26°C for swimming. Autumn stays warm but turns wet, 70mm in September and 66mm in October. January highs of 17°C keep winter visits workable, though the sea is too cool to swim.
Getting there
| Flying from | Toledo | Valencia |
|---|---|---|
| PalmaPMI | 1 h 20 m €56-238 MAD · 80 km | 1 h 0 m €32-53 VLC · 9 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 10 m €52-105 MAD · 80 km | 2 h 15 m €80-167 VLC · 9 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 55 m €95-123 MAD · 80 km | 1 h 55 m €103-131 VLC · 9 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 2 h 15 m €83-91 MAD · 80 km | 2 h 0 m €70-117 VLC · 9 km |
| MilanMXP, BGY, LIN | 2 h 0 m €53-86 MAD · 80 km | 1 h 50 m €51-87 VLC · 9 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 2 h 25 m €175-213 MAD · 80 km | 2 h 25 m €155-178 VLC · 9 km |
| TenerifeTFS, TFN | 2 h 50 m €109-153 MAD · 80 km | 3 h 0 m €100-186 1 stop VLC · 9 km |
| BrusselsBRU, CRL | 2 h 15 m €99-166 MAD · 80 km | 2 h 15 m €110-139 VLC · 9 km |
| MarrakechRAK | 1 h 55 m no fares MAD · 80 km | 2 h 0 m €72-115 VLC · 9 km |
| MontrealYUL, YHU, YMX | 7 h 10 m no fares MAD · 80 km | 7 h 30 m no fares VLC · 9 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 2026-09, 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 | Toledo | Valencia |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Spanish | Spanish |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CF230 V, 50 Hz | CF230 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 | 523 m | 15 m |
| Main airport | Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport (MAD)80 km from centre236 non-stop destinations | Valencia Airport (VLC)9 km from centre107 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Toledo | Valencia |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 87,216 | 840,792 |
| People per km² | 376 | 6,242 |
| Museums within 10 km | 13 | 46 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 2 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 13 | 92 |
| 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 Toledo or Valencia somewhere new.