Annecy or Bordeaux?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Has no clear advantage with the weighting you have chosen.
Wins on nightlife and museums & heritage 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 Annecy if the trip is built around water and open space: 9 beaches on the lake, theme parks within reach, and high-summer days near 27°C.
Choose Bordeaux if you want a city to walk around: about three times as many notable places near the centre, far more museums and restaurants, and mild winters, with January highs around 11°C.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Annecy and Bordeaux are level on 0.
| Annecy | Bordeaux | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 9 | 4 |
| Coast distance | 260 km | 18 km |
| Water distance | — | — |
Places to eat. Bordeaux leads by 22 points.22
| Annecy | Bordeaux | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 46 | 68 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 343 | 975 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 20 | 32 |
Museums & heritage. Bordeaux leads by 25 points.25
| Annecy | Bordeaux | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 30 | 55 |
| Museums within 10 km | 9 | 35 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 5 | 17 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 56 | 49 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 2 | 4 |
Nightlife. Bordeaux leads by 28 points.28
| Annecy | Bordeaux | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 20 | 48 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 140 | 546 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 120 | 427 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 86 | 78 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 6 | 32 |
Nature & day trips. Bordeaux leads by 15 points.15
| Annecy | Bordeaux | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 36 | 51 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 20 | 35 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 19 | 35 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 85 |
| Park area within 2 km | 48 hectares | 43 hectares |
Good for families. Bordeaux leads by 16 points.16
| Annecy | Bordeaux | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 29 | 45 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 4 | 21 |
| Park area within 2 km | 48 hectares | 43 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 3 | 1 |
Sights concentration. Bordeaux leads by 22 points.22
| Annecy | Bordeaux | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 23 | 45 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 15 | 51 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Annecy and Bordeaux are level on 62.
| Annecy | Bordeaux | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 62 |
| Price level global | 73.7 | 73.7 |
| Daily budget | €160 | €160 |
Year-round weather. Bordeaux leads by 9 points.9
| Annecy | Bordeaux | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 59 | 68 |
| Monthly daytime high | 5.1 °C to 26.8 °C | 10.5 °C to 27.6 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 55 mm to 94 mm | 47 mm to 114 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 0 |
Where they differ
Annecy is the more outdoor-facing of the two. It has 9 beaches nearby against Bordeaux's 4, and 3 theme parks within reach against Bordeaux's 1, with a comparable amount of park space near the centre.
Bordeaux is the stronger city break. It has about three times as many restaurants near the centre and a much wider range of kitchens, about three times as many museums, 4 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Annecy's 2, three times as many notable places within walking distance, and a far larger spread of bars and clubs.
Where they are alike
Neither is a seaside destination. Annecy's 9 beaches and Bordeaux's 4 are inland water, and neither city has a month with sea at 21°C or more, so swimming is a summer extra rather than a reason to book.
Both also share a damp pattern: neither has a month at 40mm of rain or less, so no season is reliably dry. Peak summer heat is much the same in each, and both keep a similar amount of park space near the centre.
Which traveller are you?
A traveller who plans days around museums and dinner should take Bordeaux, which has roughly three times as many museums as Annecy and about three times as many restaurants near the centre, across a much wider range of kitchens.
A family with young children is better served by Annecy, with 3 theme parks within reach against Bordeaux's 1 and 9 beaches against 4, though Bordeaux has many more attractions inside walking range of its centre.
Anyone who wants evenings out should choose Bordeaux, with about three times as many places to drink and many times as many nightclubs, most of them close to the centre in both cities.
What the numbers don't tell you
The value comparison between these two carries no information. It is a national price level, identical for both by construction, and the €160 a day quoted beside it is a single national estimate rather than a measurement of either city. Nothing here makes one of them the cheaper trip.
Annecy's 9 beaches also need reading carefully. Neither city has a month with sea at 21°C or more, so the count says nothing about water warm enough to swim in, and neither has a month at 40mm of rain or less, so the warmest months are not the dry ones either.
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. Annecy: 1991-2020 normals, Geneve-Cointrin (39 km from centre). Bordeaux: 1991-2020 normals, Bordeaux / Merignac (9.5 km from centre).
Annecy is at its best from June to September, with highs of 24-27°C in high summer and 21°C in September. Rain never lets up much, and autumn is the wettest stretch at 87-94mm.
Bordeaux's summer is the drier one, 47mm in July and 57mm in August, with highs of 27-28°C, and September still reaches 24°C. Winter is the clearer split: January highs of 11°C against Annecy's 5°C, though November and December bring 107-114mm.
Getting there
| Flying from | Annecy | Bordeaux |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 35 m €91-200 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 30 m €46-73 BOD · 11 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 10 m €104-203 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 15 m €114-148 BOD · 11 km |
| PortoOPO | 2 h 10 m €127-171 1 stop GVA · 38 km | 1 h 35 m no fares BOD · 11 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 30 m €160-186 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 45 m no fares BOD · 11 km |
| LisbonLIS | 2 h 25 m €156-181 1 stop GVA · 38 km | 1 h 50 m €98-125 BOD · 11 km |
| NiceNCE | 1 h 0 m €64-114 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 25 m no fares BOD · 11 km |
| MadridMAD | 1 h 50 m no fares GVA · 38 km | 1 h 20 m no fares BOD · 11 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 25 m €65-78 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 10 m €77-107 BOD · 11 km |
| MarrakechRAK | 3 h 5 m no fares GVA · 38 km | 2 h 35 m no fares BOD · 11 km |
| MontrealYUL, YHU, YMX | 7 h 35 m no fares GVA · 38 km | 7 h 10 m no fares BOD · 11 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 | Annecy | Bordeaux |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | French | French |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CE230 V, 50 Hz | CE230 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 | 418 m | 1 m |
| Main airport | Geneva International Airport (GVA)38 km from centre140 non-stop destinations | Bordeaux–Mérignac Airport (BOD)11 km from centre94 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 11 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Annecy | Bordeaux |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 132,117 | 267,991 |
| People per km² | 1,975 | 5,425 |
| Museums within 10 km | 1 | 18 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 4 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 44 | 81 |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Annecy or Bordeaux somewhere new.