Annecy or Cannes?
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 and nature & day trips with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming and sights concentration 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 your trip is built around green space and walking country, and you can accept a cold winter, with January highs of 5°C, and no swimming at any point in the year.
Choose Cannes if you want beaches and warm sea in summer, a compact centre with far more to see on foot, and winters that stay mild at around 13°C.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Cannes leads by 73 points.73
| Annecy | Cannes | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 73 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 4 |
| Beaches 10 km | 9 | 68 |
| Coast distance | 260 km | 1 km |
| Water distance | — | 1 km |
Places to eat. Cannes leads by 4 points.4
| Annecy | Cannes | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 46 | 50 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 343 | 473 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 20 | 19 |
Museums & heritage. Cannes leads by 6 points.6
| Annecy | Cannes | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 30 | 36 |
| Museums within 10 km | 9 | 31 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 5 | 5 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 56 | 16 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 2 | 2 |
Nightlife. Cannes leads by 8 points.8
| Annecy | Cannes | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 20 | 28 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 140 | 188 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 120 | 164 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 86 | 87 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 6 | 19 |
Nature & day trips. Annecy leads by 3 points.3
| Annecy | Cannes | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 36 | 33 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 20 | 17 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 19 | 16 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 53 |
| Park area within 2 km | 48 hectares | 13 hectares |
Good for families. Annecy leads by 4 points.4
| Annecy | Cannes | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 29 | 25 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 4 | 7 |
| Park area within 2 km | 48 hectares | 13 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 3 | 3 |
Sights concentration. Cannes leads by 33 points.33
| Annecy | Cannes | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 23 | 56 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 15 | 95 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Annecy and Cannes are level on 62.
| Annecy | Cannes | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 62 |
| Price level global | 73.7 | 73.7 |
| Daily budget | €160 | €160 |
Year-round weather. Cannes leads by 15 points.15
| Annecy | Cannes | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 59 | 74 |
| Monthly daytime high | 5.1 °C to 26.8 °C | 13.3 °C to 27.9 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 55 mm to 94 mm | 13 mm to 138 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 3 |
Where they differ
Annecy is the greener of the two, with about three times as much park space near the centre and a slightly larger protected hinterland for walking days. Its museums are fewer, but they sit tightly together around the centre.
Cannes is the one for water and for sights on foot: 68 beaches nearby against Annecy's 9, and sea at 21°C or more for four months where Annecy has none. It has many times as many notable places within walking distance, and runs warmer through the year, 13-28°C against 5-27°C.
Where they are alike
The two are closest on countryside access. Similar shares of the surrounding land are protected, 20% around Annecy and 17% around Cannes, so days out of town are a real part of either trip.
They are also near-level on eating out and on family travel. The range of kitchens is comparable in both, even if Cannes has somewhat more restaurants near its centre, and each has 3 theme parks within reach and 2 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip distance.
Which traveller are you?
A summer beach traveller should go to Cannes. It has 68 beaches against Annecy's 9 and sea warm enough for swimming across four months of the year, where Annecy has no swimming at all.
Someone who walks and wants open green space should pick Annecy: roughly three times as much park space near the centre, a slightly larger protected hinterland, and quieter evenings than Cannes.
A traveller who wants sights close together, more museums and somewhere to go after dinner should pick Cannes: many more notable places within walking distance, about three times as many museums and nightclubs, and more attractions near the centre for children.
What the numbers don't tell you
The value axis is a national price level and is identical for both by construction, so it carries no information about which of these two costs less. The €160 daily budget sits beside it as one national estimate, not a measurement of either city.
Cannes's beach and weather strengths peak together in high summer, when the shore is warmest and also busiest, and its driest months are exactly those weeks. Its wettest stretch, 124-138mm in October and November, follows straight after, so a mild autumn day there is not a reliably dry one.
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). Cannes: 1991-2020 normals, Nice (18 km from centre).
Annecy peaks from June to August, at 24-27°C, though rain there is steady rather than seasonal, around 80mm a month even in midsummer and heavier again through autumn. Winter is properly cold, and there is no swimming season at all.
Cannes holds a longer season. July and August are hot and close to dry, at 28°C with 13-18mm, and the sea reaches 25°C. May and June give warmth without the peak, at 21-25°C. Even in winter, days sit near 13°C.
Getting there
| Flying from | Annecy | Cannes |
|---|---|---|
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 10 m €104-203 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 30 m €78-111 NCE · 20 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 35 m €91-200 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 55 m €76-223 NCE · 20 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 30 m €160-186 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 50 m €170-248 NCE · 20 km |
| LisbonLIS | 2 h 25 m €156-181 1 stop GVA · 38 km | 2 h 25 m €153-221 1 stop NCE · 20 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 25 m €65-78 GVA · 38 km | 1 h 15 m €83-135 NCE · 20 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 30 m no fares GVA · 38 km | 1 h 10 m €69-133 NCE · 20 km |
| BrusselsBRU, CRL | 1 h 20 m no fares GVA · 38 km | 1 h 40 m €155-228 1 stop NCE · 20 km |
| PortoOPO | 2 h 10 m €127-171 1 stop GVA · 38 km | 2 h 15 m no fares NCE · 20 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 6 h 25 m €318-351 1 stop GVA · 38 km | 6 h 20 m €375-433 NCE · 20 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 8 h 0 m no fares GVA · 38 km | 8 h 10 m €666-799 1 stop NCE · 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 | Annecy | Cannes |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | 0 m |
| Main airport | Geneva International Airport (GVA)38 km from centre140 non-stop destinations | Nice-Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE)20 km from centre129 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 11 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Annecy | Cannes |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 132,117 | 74,350 |
| People per km² | 1,975 | 3,793 |
| Museums within 10 km | 1 | 16 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 2 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 44 | 38 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | – | 4 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Annecy or Cannes somewhere new.