Barcelona or Madrid?

483 km apart, both in Spain. Each is scored month by month on the same ten years of climate readings, the public holidays that crowd it, and what the flight costs. This is where they part, and when.

• Barcelona Spain · best Jun, Jul, Aug
• Madrid Spain · best May, Jun, Sep

Month by month

Each cell is that destination's own verdict for the month — sweet spot, ok or avoid — with its typical daily high and its rainy days ("11d"). The pick goes to the better verdict; with the same verdict, to the higher score, unless the two are within a whisker of each other, when it is either. A month both would avoid is neither. A dot marks a busy month.

Before you go

Both are in Spain, so the currency, the plugs and the travel advice are the same: type C and F plugs, driving on the right, paying in the Q4916. Everything for Spain.

Between them

483 km as the crow flies, about 1h 30m in the air.Nonstop, about 17 a day · 10 airlines. By train, about 3h 51m · AVE 03303 · H10. By road, 608 km and about 6h 00m.

The flight time is estimated from the distance. A road, train or bus is named only where it was measured — flights from AeroDataBox, roads from OpenRouteService, timetables via Transitous — and none of it is a fare; the searches on each destination's page are where prices live.

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Every verdict here is the destination's own: ten years of climate readings, the public holidays that crowd it, and what the flight costs. The comparison is the difference between two pages, not a third opinion.